The Wanderer and an Unexpected Journey
by liriethmaethor
Summary: Tallismae is an Easterling. Traveling to the West of Middle Earth, she became the Wanderer, living with many races and learning their ways. She meets Thorin Oakenshield. A few years later, she joins him on the quest for the Lonely Mountain although a certain tension between them from before has not been resolved at all. Based on Tolkien's Hobbit and PJ's movies. reviews encouraged!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

My hood was thrown back and a breath of spring's evening slipped across my cheeks and swept my coiled black locks over my shoulders. A delicious shiver wove down my spine as I took a deep breath of sweet, grassy air and let my shoulders drop with a sigh.

I had tried slipping inconspicuously into a hobbit inn (The Green Dragon Inn, Bywater) on the edges of the Shire last night and was met with curious stares and suspicious glances. However, my happy hail of a typical hobbit, "Good evening!" rather than the flurry of foreign greetings I could have used endeared me to them quite quickly. I found hobbits so very wary of strangers, but when met with their own colloquial language, their famed hospitality cropped up like rabbits popping out of dens. I suppose that is the way with every race and culture. Gratefully, I spread golden honey onto the raisin studded bread still steaming from the oven and dug into a meat pie and a river-trout dripping oil and seasoned to perfection. Hobbits were the most wholesome cooks in all of Middle Earth. I bought a round a drinks –luckily my purse was filled from the last courier job I did–and the round, rosy cheeked people who only came up to my waist pulled me off my bench and into a round dance to the music of a recorder, fiddle and drums. It was not a difficult dance –closer to the dances of the Rohirrim, rather than the complex Gondorian dances weighed down with Numenorean tradition. Happy, tipsy laughter bounced about as I had to drop to my hands and feet to get under the archway of joined hands. Weaving through like a wayward sight-hound I found myself chuckling and playfully bumping into legs and arms amidst shouts and whoops.

The dance ended with a flourish from the fiddle and I straightened, wincing a little as my upper back complained. I stretched. I was a little tired, but the six days of easy riding from Lindon and the ship I had spent little over a month on to return to the Shire from Belfalas was a smooth sailing. I had been entrusted with a heavy little chest and a letter from a Belfalas merchant after I had overseen a train of wagons full of Shire pipe-weed to the docks at Lindon in early March, then accompanied the barrels to their destination and transaction in Belfalas in early April. The heavy chest was full of gold for the hobbit farmers whose famed pipe-weed had spread far beyond the borders of the Shire. My own purse was full from the gold the merchant had paid me for my services and the farmers had paid me a handsome fee once I gave them their payment from the merchant. I excused myself from dance floor and curled up in a corner with some lovely summer wine made from the fruits of Hobbiton. Smiling into the mug, I tipped it back. There had only been watered rum, hard biscuits and dried meat on the ship since there were no ports large enough for a cargo ship to stop and re-stock between southern Gondor and Lindon.

Finishing the wine, I stood and left a few coins on the table and headed towards my room. I had not taken a bath for a month and a half and my skin was tingling with the anticipation of clean hot water untainted by brine or dirt. Stepping aside to let a maid pass, I knocked on the door of the kitchen and asked for a tub and hot water. They sent a young lad to carry the tub to my room and set it before the fire and then gave him a jug to ferry hot water to it. Though the jug he carried was not much more than a milk pitcher for me, the appraising looks he got from the maids said otherwise for the hobbits. I filled another jug and had the grace not to carry another. Soon, the tub was filled and I locked the door, slipped out of my crusty, grimy clothes and stepped into the tiny tub. My knees were up by my chin and the water only went a little over my waist as I sat there a little disappointed. Grunting, I splashed about until I was kneeling and then proceeded to dip the jugs in and pour the water over my body as I scrubbed like mad with a bar of soap and a brush a maid had left. After a long while, half of the water was on the floor and what was left in the tub was black. I wrinkled my nose and stepped out carefully as not to slip. I dried myself with three fluffy little hobbit towels, mopped up the mess, and threw the bath water out the window. Flopping onto the bed, I burrowed into the starched, clean sheets. The bed was human sized since they had given me the only room with a bed meant for a human. Before I blew the candle out, I slid a worn letter from my pack and unfolded it carefully.

_Come to the house on Bag End with the rune on the door on fifth day of May. Our old friend will need you on an unexpected sort of journey far, far East. Perhaps you can guess at the nature of this quest already. The stubborn fool has swallowed his pride and has asked for your help personally. There is a document for you to sign if you agree to come. There will be food, and old friends, and new ones, perhaps. The riches that await at the end of the adventure will be well worth the challenges._

_ I will be waiting for you there,_

_Gandalf_

I had swallowed an overwhelming sense of anticipation and nervousness, blew out the candle and went to sleep with the letter in my hand, though it was on the floor when I woke up late afternoon.

Now the letter was folded in my hand as I ran my finger over and over the folds and creases. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath as I neared the hobbit hole at the top of the hill. I could hear the unmistakeable sounds deep dwarvish laughter and the sounds of a hearty, rowdy dinner party happening inside. I had meandered slowly on the paths that wound round fields and hobbit holes. Perhaps I was afraid to arrive. My stomach was certainly turning itself inside out as I slowly pushed open the thigh-high gate and nudged it closed. What would we say to one another? Would he still look at me the same way? Could we still be so very honest to one another? I bit my lip as I stood before the little round green door with a glowing blue rune above the centered door knob. Knocking suddenly lest I stood there asking myself stupid questions any longer, I braced myself. The door was flung open.

"I do _NOT_ need _any more_ dwarves in my house, thank you very much!"

I was taken aback by the words of the small figure of a hobbit standing hopelessly in the doorway. We stared at one another. He had a head of brown caramel curls, an open, honest, wonderfully quaint hobbit face, and a striped shirt and a pair of brown trousers and suspenders on. His big furry feet twitched.

"You're not a dwarf."

"No I am not." I smiled. "Good evening, sir."

He looked at me with his mouth agape and then shook his head a little. "Good evening to you," A smile tugged shyly at the corners of his mouth. Flustered, he remembered himself and invited me in.

I wiped my boots on the mat outside the door and leaned down to get through the door. Shedding my cloak, I hung it on a hook by the door and unbuckled my sword and slipped it into the umbrella stand. The hobbit stood in shock at my neatness. I heard crashes, sounds of plates and forks and spoons and roars of laughter farther into the house. My head brushed the ceiling.

"Dwarves are not very considerate house guests, I'm afraid." I grinned.

"They –they are not... Wait, who are you?"

"Tallismae, otherwise known as the Wanderer –I've been to the Shire a few times for business matters, but never into the heart of Hobbiton. You have a lovely home."

"Th –Thank you," he cheered considerably at the last comment.

"And, I do not think I caught your name,"

"Oh!" he blushed, "I –I'm Bilbo Baggins," he recovered, "Here, here, follow me –supper is over here." He led me towards the ruckus I was hearing. A sudden wave of anxiousness hit my chest as we turned the corner and came into the view of the stuffed dining room. I swept my eyes over every face –there were about a dozen or so dwarves. My breath caught in my throat as I searched for the face I was dreading and so longing to see. I recognized almost all the faces from my stay in Ered Luin but not one of them was the stubborn fool Gandalf had referred to in the letter. A sense of relief and disappointment washed through me. Finally, my eyes rested on the grey wizard squashed in a corner eating and chuckling away. His eyes widened and twinkled as he caught sight of me.

"Tallis!" He almost tried standing, but after nearly over turning the table, he settled down again.

The dwarves all turned to look at me, food hanging out of their mouths, mugs full of beer in their hands.

"TAAAAAAALLIS!" one of them shouted. His oddly shaped grey felt hat was as tipsy as he was.

"Hello Bofur," I cracked a grin.

"Aha! She remembers my name!" He roared.

"I remember all the people I've met," I raised my brow at them and they shouted in challenge. They then shushed each other and threw some more food around until they quieted. I put my hands on my hips and got started. "We'll start with Bifur there, you sly weasel." He grunted his approval in dwarvish –he could not speak Westron anymore because of the orc ax buried in his forehead, but his speech impediment was by no means an indicator of dimness or weakness in a fight. "Then Dwalin. I must say, the forearms look just as sinewy as before." He flexed and snorted causally. "Then Oin. I'll have fun whispering in your ear again," The greying old bugger shook his hearing aid in his fist and winked back at me, rousing a chorus of whistles and hoots. Chuckling, I turned to the next two. They looked expectantly up at me. "Oh, I don't seem to know these two strapping young dwarves. I have not yet had the honor of meeting either of you. Tallismae the Wanderer at your service," I swept them a low bow.

Looking about fifty year or less, they were very young dwarves –perhaps about twenty to thirty or so for a human. They both pushed their stools back and replied with "Fili" and "Kili" and an "At your service!" in unison complete with handsome bows.

"Fili and Kili!" I wracked my brain. "Are you not the youngest of Durin's line?" They both nodded cockily. Realizing this, I worked out that they probably were more along the lines of seventy or eighty years old. Still young for dwarves, really, but having the ancestry of Durin the Deathless does preserve youth for quite a while longer when they lived to about 300 years old rather than the usual 200 or so. They were off to a stint in the south when I was in Ered Luin, if I remembered correctly.

I moved on. "Bombur –still eating all your own delicious cooking?" He slapped his belly happily and bit into another full block of cheese. The hobbit shuddered violently beside me.

"Not even a cheese-knife," he muttered aghast.

"Ah, I remember you. Ori. I suppose you are still a great shot with that sling of yours." The youngest one puffed up considerably. When I had first met him, he had fallen over in surprise, having never left the mountain before and seen a human. His soft young face was framed by plaits in his hair –I bit back a giggle –plaits that had the tell-tale sign of a mother's tearful goodbye and a good long pre-quest fussing: purple ribbons. "Gloin! You still haven't forged me that axe you promised." He grunted. "Nori," I nodded at him and nodded subtly back, a hint of a mysterious little smile on his lips. Quiet and unpredictable, he was. "You again, Bofur. And Dori our wine taster and –," I paused as he groaned, "the best brewer of tea in all of the western lands of Middle Earth!" The dwarves gave him the hardest time with his love of herbal teas. He was strong as an ox but gentle as a rabbit inside.

"Hello Tallismae," the lovely old voice curled about my ear like a grandfather's tale.

"Hello Balin," I gave the old white haired dwarf in red a soft smile. Suddenly, I wondered how much he had to do with me being here.

His eyes met mine with a sort of knowing look and he smiled and nodded and turned back to his food. The dwarves all thumped the table and laughed and clapped and I bowed again. I turned to Bilbo Baggins. His eyes were screwed shut and he winced every time someone clashed their fists onto his lovely dining table. I put a kind hand on his shoulder.

"May I have a stool, if it is not too much trouble?"

His eyes flew open and he shook his little noggin, clearing his tortured thoughts about his crockery and table and pattered off gladly away from the room.

Soon, I was seated between Balin and Gandalf trying to grab at food without being hit by the flying bits going across the table towards Bombur's mouth. I had a draught of the hobbit's sweet summer wine and set upon a slice of ham, some seed-cake, and other bits of this and that were left in the dishes. Slowly, most of the food was in our stomachs and many of us were on our feet stretching or burping loudly.

"Excuse me, but where do I put my plate," came the voice of little Ori as he trundled over to Bilbo standing stiffly in the hall.

"I'll just take that –hey!" Bilbo gasped as Kili snatched the plate from his fingers and whipped it through the air.

Bilbo emitted a high pitched squeal, just as Fili caught it and flung it off again. A strangled sound bubbled out of the poor little hobbit as watched the plate fly towards Bifur who was at the sink with a bucket of water, ready to wash. He caught it easily. Bilbo let go of a breath. Suddenly, I ducked. Not a moment too soon, it seemed as another plate whizzed by.

"That's my mother's best dish!" Bilbo screamed.

Dishes were up in the air and soon a thumping of boots and the clashing of cutlery made a sort of beat.

"You'll dull them!" Bilbo tried snatching at Bofur's knife and fork, but had to jump back as a bowl nearly clipped him the face.

A deep young voice cropped up: "Chip the glasses and crack the plates! Blunt the knives and bend the forks!"

Fili's voice answered Kili's: "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates –Smash the bottles and burn the corks!"

A resounding chorus of dwarves started a merry sound as Bofur sent his knife spinning in the air towards Bifur and pulled out a little recorder and began to play. Laughing, and singing along to the refrain of: "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!" I joined into the merry cleaning crew. Gloin played a tea pot, Oin clanked his hearing aid about, and Bombur cleaned up all the scraps left on the plate.

Finishing with a, "So carefully! Carefully with the plates!" we admired the plates and bowls and cutlery all shining clean and stacked up nice on the wiped dining table. Bilbo stood with his mouth agape.

There was a knock at the door.

"He's here." Gandalf suddenly became quite serious.

I bit my lip as everyone blundered to the door. Bilbo opened it. Hanging back in the shadows, I watched as clear blue eyes swept upon the gathering. I swallowed dryly as I studied the serious, hard, noble, handsome face. Still the oddly un-dwarvish close-cropped beard and the long raven hair, though now there were some strands shot through with a little grey. The intimidating brow line and long, straight nose could not hide the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, nor the subtle rounding of his sharp cheekbones that echoed gentleness at his lips and deep in his eyes.

"You're late," Gandalf stated.

"Your sign did little good –I was lost and wandered these paths for some time before I found this place," He stepped in.

"What sign?" Bilbo jumped it, "I just got my door painted –,"

Gandalf cut him off. "Bilbo, meet the leader of our company, Thorin Oakenshield."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two

"So this is our burglar," Thorin paced slowly around the confused hobbit. "He looks more like a grocer, than a burglar."

_Oh_, I realized now why we were at Bag End. I had not quite registered the rune on the door that meant "burglar looking for a job," or rather "expert treasure hunter," had something to do with the hobbit until now. What on earth was Gandalf doing?

"Burg –burglar?" Bilbo was taken aback.

"Do you fight?" It was barely a question.

"Fight, f–fight? If you must know, I am rather good with a game of Conkers," he hooked his thumbs rather proudly on his suspenders, "but I don't see what that has to do with anything,"

"I thought as much," amusement laced through the words and the dwarves all snickered a little.

I sighed. Conkers was a game of horse-chestnuts: each player would tie a string around a spiky little nut and then whip it at one another and bash it about on the opponent until their own conker breaks. It could sting like a royal slap if one took a hit in the face or the neck, but he really shouldn't have mentioned it in front of the dwarves. Thorin was asking about swords and axes and bows... not nuts.

I stepped out of the shadows and leaned against a curved wall, waiting. Hesitating, I stayed silent, not sure if I wanted did or did not want to draw attention to myself. Thorin shrugged off his long fur lined blue leather longcoat and Dori stepped forward to take it from him. Unbelting his sword, he handed it to Nori. Tilting my head, I studied him carefully. Reading people and situations easily and accurately was one of my most precious skills, yet he was so very difficult to emotionally decipher at times. I wondered how much of his own personal feelings he could ever reveal as a leader of his people from such a young age.

On an impulse, I stepped forward, "Supper, Thorin?"

He raised his head suddenly to meet my eyes. In that moment, I thought a saw a little surprise, and perhaps even relief on his face, but it passed so quickly I wasn't sure if it was even there.

"Wanderer,"

Something stung me in my lower chest and I couldn't speak. _Wanderer._ His eyes were unfathomable and unforgiving. Our gaze never broke. I was barely breathing.

Then something changed in his hammering stare and his smooth, deep, gravelly voice uttered "Tallis," and his face softened and he smiled, the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes crinkling.

The tension in my chest dissolved and my face broke into a brilliant grin. "I'm sure Bilbo can still find you something to eat after your company inhaled just about everything in the pantry. Come,"

Bilbo scurried beside me, "_Everything_ in the pantry," he corrected. I made a face at him.

Soon, everyone was seated at the table again with Thorin at the head, drinking a bowl of soup Bilbo had discovered in the oven that he left there to keep warm. Gandalf sat on Thorin's left and I leaned into the curve of the round frame of the entrance to the dining room on his right. It was darker now and Gandalf had sent Bilbo to fetch a lamp.

Dwalin spoke first. "Will they come? Dain and his men?"

Thorin sighed heavily, "The dwarves of the Ironhills will not come,"

Grumbling the dwarves began to murmur and then complain: "The odds were always against us!" they cried. They began to speak of doubt and of the impossible quest and the danger. The clamour grew until Thorin had to stand and slam the little spoon in his hand on the table and yell.

"If we have read the signs correctly, _which, we have_, this is our time to act. Do you not think that if we have read the signs, others will have seen them as well? The beast has not been seen for sixty years and now all eyes turn to the lonely mountain, seeking and evaluating and weighing the risk and reward. We will seize this chance to take back Erebor!" A roar and shaking of fists rose in reply.

I could feel my heart quicken with their cries and shouts.

"Excuse me, what beast?" the plaintive voice of the hobbit cropped up from behind me.

Bofur was too happy to oblige. "Oh that would be a reference to Smaug the terrible," Bofur answered, "Fire breather, teeth like razors, claws like meat hooks, extremely fond of precious metals."

"I _know _what a dragon is." the hobbit gasped and took a step back.

Suddenly, Ori shot up with a look of fear crazed and defiance on his face. "_I'm not afraid_! _I'm_ up for it; I'll give him a taste of dwarfish iron right up his jacksy!" Dori pulled his little brother down with a thump.

Gandalf laid a map upon the table. Stepping forward, Gandalf and I flanked Thorin on either side.

"Here lays the single solitary peak of Erebor," Gandalf pointed.

"Yes, but there is no way into the mountain. The gate has been sealed off." Balin spoke.

"That, my dear Balin, is not entirely true."Fumbling, the old wizard drew a heavy, angular, clearly dwarvish key from his pocket and handed it to Thorin.

"How did you come by this?" Thorin's eyes were ablaze with awe and suspicion.

"Your father left it in my keeping to give to you,"

We all watched as he turned it over in his fingers.

"If there is a key," Kili suddenly spoke from down the table, "there must be a door,"

"If there is a door," Fili finished, "there must be another way in."

I refrained from rolling my eyes at their apparent findings.

"There is a secret passage," Gandalf said.

"If we do get in, what will we do about the beast?" Gloin cut in.

"This is where Mr. Baggins comes in. Hobbits can go unseen and unheard when they want to and Smaug will be used to the smell of dwarf, but the scent of hobbit will be all but unknown to him."

"Wait!" Bilbo's eyes were as wide as saucers.

"He doesn't look like a burglar to me," someone yelled.

Bilbo nodded, agreeing whole-heartedly.

"He's no good as a burglar for us –he's fat and soft around the middle and cares too much about his dishes and crocheting,"

Bilbo frowned, but said nothing –he was determined not to go on the quest, it seemed.

"That task will be difficult, even with an army behind us. But we're just thirteen." Balin spoke.

"If Smaug is not dead –we have no means to defeat him or get past him," Thorin passed his hand over his face and the table returned to its chaos and noise.

"We may be few in number, but we're fighters, all of us!" Fili slammed his fist on the table.

"And do you not forget we have a wizard in our company, Gandalf must have killed hundreds of dragons in his time!" Kili reminded.

"Oh, well I wouldn't say that-" Gandalf began.

"How many then?"

"What?"

"How many dragons have you killed?"

Gandalf shot me a glance and coughed on his pipe, as the dwarves descended into shouts again –about whether Gandalf had killed dragons and how Bilbo was a soft little grocer. I returned his look with one of my own: _you got yourself into this, old man._

These dwarves were impossible. My jaw tightened. Was this quest really what I wanted to do for the next year or two of my life? Scratch that –there was little chance I would ever return in one piece, or even a few pieces. I realized with a jolt that I hadn't even thought about the journey properly and clearly at all. All I had done was gotten a letter, then seemed to slip right into thinking that I was already a part of the company. What was I doing? Where did my good sense and wits go? Panicked, I backed against the wall as the dwarves shouted louder.

Suddenly, Gandalf rose up and the room darkened and his voice boomed as his shoulders were digging into the ceiling. "LISTEN TO ME –I HAVE CHOSEN Bilbo Baggins as the fourteenth member of your company and you must trust me on this! Besides, Bilbo has a lot more to offer than you think and more than he thinks."

"What me? NO, no –,"

"Give him our contract," Thorin closed his eyes wearily.

"Yes! We're off!" the dwarves sounded relieved.

Balin handed Bilbo a long contract. _"_It's just the usual; summary about pocket expenses, time required, remuneration, funeral arrangements so forth."

Bilbo unfurled the long folds of parchment_. "_Funeral arrangements?" He swallowed but read on. "Oh, up to but not exceeding one fourteenth total profit if any. Seems fair... Present company shall not be liable for injuries including but not limited to laceration, evisceration... incineration?"

Bofur chimed in again, "Oh, aye. He'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye."

"You all right, laddie?" Balin peered at the teetering hobbit.

"Yeah, I'll be. Feel a bit faint," Bilbo hunched over, his hands on his thighs.

Bofur continued, "Think furnace, with wings."

"Bofur." I moaned.

"Yeah, I-I-I need air,"

"Flash of light, searing pain, then poof, you're nothing more than a pile of ash."

"Stop it! You're –," I glared at him.

Bilbo let out a breathy, "No," and keeled over.

The dwarves looked at the little figure with mixed expressions of disgust and sympathy. Sighing, I stepped over to poor Bilbo and picked him up gently like a child.

"Someone, get me a pillow," I ordered.

I ducked into the living room and was about to lay him down on a settee when a voice came from behind me.

"Here,"

I turned to look down into Thorin's face –full of irritation. Placing the pillow on the edge of the settee and moved back to allow me to place the hobbit gently down.

"Watch him," I told Thorin and went off to find brandy.

Just at the door, I turned back. His eyes found mine and they were full of badly-veiled desperation. I opened my mouth, but I didn't know what to say, so I just spun around and left.

Bilbo woke up a few minutes later and with some brandy and some air from the window, he was sitting in front of the fire talking to Gandalf. I could hear the wizard trying to persuade the hobbit to come, but tonight's excitement seemed quite enough for him.

"I'm sorry Gandalf, you have the wrong hobbit," Bilbo stood up and padded off dazedly to his room.

Gandalf sighed and sank into the chair.

I wandered towards the window and saw the moon high up in the sky. I needed to get some air too. Besides, my neck was sore from all the leaning down I had to do. Padding towards the door, I overheard low voices down the corridor. It was Balin and Thorin.

"We are just smiths and tinkers and cooks and toymakers, not heroes,"

"When I called, only you thirteen answered. Loyalty, honor, and a willing heart –I can ask no more than that."

Turning away, I unlocked the door and stepped outside into the night air. Dare I go on the quest? I smiled wryly. Months in the wilderness with nothing but hard ground to sleep on, sore-footed dwarves as companions, and danger at every turn sounded lovely. What would it be all for? The gold? I needed no gold. The adventure? I could find some on my own. I pushed down the third thought before it began to form. I kicked the fence instead. I stopped as I heard the door open behind me and the tread of a heavy boot.

"Tallis,"

"Thorin,"

"I understand if you do not wish to come,"

So blunt, but that was the usual. "I haven't signed the contract yet,"

He paused. "Does that mean you will not come?"

I shook my head at myself. My heart was set on this quest the first time I read the letter. I faced him, smiling. "Give me the contract." Saying so made me happy. That was all I was looking for.

He had been frowning like a hedgehog, but his grin erased that quickly. We stood there, grinning like idiots at one another until we broke into dry chuckles.

"I've missed you, you know," I said as I walked towards him and stepped past him to the door.

He was silent.

"It would be nice to hear the same from you," I teased as I went in.

He snorted. But his face was as easy to read as a book.

*this was more of a filler chapter -Tallis tells the dwarves about her childhood and her first travels in the next chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

The dwarves had gathered in the living room, smoking, chatting quietly, or drinking tea. As they murmured away, I made a second pot of tea and poured the steaming, fragrant stuff into three mugs and headed back to them. I passed the mug with blue glaze to Gandalf.

"Thank you, Tallis."

"You're welcome,"

"You signed it."

"I did."

"Why?"

I bit my lip. "Because it made me happy –to sign it, I mean," When the pen touched the paper, I felt a release of emotions, especially all the built up anxiety and stress over the past few days. Hell, the last few years, probably. "Being happy is quite a priority for me." I frowned. That sounded so selfish, but it was the truth. "Besides," words tumbled out of my mouth, "I want to make people happy, but I can't make other people happy if I'm not happy myself –I'm sorry," I huffed. My face heated.

"No, that was quite wise, Tallis,"

I laughed, embarrassed and smiled crookedly at him before moving off to hand the red glazed mug to Balin across the room on his chair. His face crinkled into a smile.

"Did you persuade him?" I kept the third mug for myself and took a sip.

Balin gave me a mischievous smile. "He did not even know it,"

I laughed quietly, but something still burned a bit. I didn't think I really wanted to know that he had to be persuaded.

Balin saw my expression. "It was his idea. All I had to do was reassure him,"

I gave him a sheepish smile.

We fell silent. The excitement had died down and the pipes were making the room smoky and the fire was low. Thorin leaned against the mantelpiece, so very close to the fire, looking deep into its depths. It always still surprised me how resilient to heat dwarves were. He was in heavy clothing, yet the fire did not even cause him to break sweat. It got quieter and quieter. A chill rippled through my shoulders as I watched their dark shining eyes gaze into the flames. They were remembering.

Then, Thorin began to hum. Oh, rich, rich! A baritone like hot black tea blended with the cool smell of oranges. Oh, oranges. I had not tasted one in decades. Not since I left my warm, moist home in the East. Nothing like oranges grew in the West. Frowning I ran my tongue over my lips. I had forgotten what oranges tasted like. Perhaps I would never taste them again.

A voice slid into my thoughts. It was Thorin singing.

_Far over, the Misty Mountains cold,_

_ To dungeons deep, and caverns old._

_ We must away, ere break of day,_

_ To claim our long-forgotten gold._

I had heard this song innumerable times when I was in Ered Luin. It was sung almost at the end of every gathering, every party, every funeral, every birth celebration, every wedding. It wasn't required, it seemed. The dwarves had a longing for home that was hammered into them. The wealth of Erebor was in their veins and it was calling for them. And the singing would just begin. It was their way of never forgetting.

One by one, the dwarves joined in. I knew the words as well as my own name, but it always felt wrong to join in, as if I were intruding on some secret I had no right to be apart of.

_The pines were roaring, one the heights,_

_ The trees were moaning, in the night._

_ The fire was red, it blazing spread,_

_ The trees like torches, blazed with light._

They trailed off into silence as the fire burned lower. We sat there for a while, contemplating the embers. I finished my tea. I muttered a quick "goodnight" and strode out of the room.

As I turned the corner, someone spoke, "Where are you going?"

It was Thorin. He had gone after me.

"Back to the inn to sleep –the hobbit has no space for a human in his house with you and your circus."

He nodded and smiled wryly. "Good night, then," His blue eyes were so dark in the half light.

"Goodnight," I wanted to stay. I wanted to speak to him about everything I'd done the last three years we had not seen one another. Later, I told myself.

I felt his eyes on my back, but when I turned at the door, he was already making his way back to the others.

I woke up early the next day. I relished the feeling of the featherbed and got up reluctantly. Splashing water onto my face, I plaited my locks into one long braid down my back and shed my nightgown slowly. It was an elvish thing: white, light material that ruffled gently and softly and never got hard or ragged or matted with age. It was made to be like a robe and open at the front, but a deep red ribbon wove both sides together down my front. A simple tug undid it. I rolled it up and tucked it into the bottom of my bag. I couldn't help but smile. It was my little secret luxury that I brought with me everywhere. One never knows when a chance may pop up on a journey to be able to sleep in a bed without fear. I would never show it to the dwarves, of course, let alone wear it. They would probably think it was a sort of frilly pillow case.

Glancing at the sun outside, I tucked my clothes mending kit, medicinal bag, and an array of odds and ends I always kept with me on my travels. I was a light packer –I learned through the years as I travelled from town to town and race to race. My wits and wisdom and stories were much better use to me than anything in the bag. Other than the cured beef. I loved cured beef. Rolling up my sleeping roll and heavy cloak, I tied them to the outside of my bag.

I pulled on my leather pants and donned a black shirt of thin wool. It was warm and strong. Remembering the loom I made the fabric on, I closed my eyes for a moment and remembered the white walls and tall windows or the airy buildings in Minas Tirith. Putting on my leather vest, I tied the laces down my front firmly and adjusted the short sleeves that came down to above my elbows. The brigandine design around my waist acted as a protective belt of scales around midriff. The little plates of metal were melded into the leather, rather like a flexible and lighter version of plate mail. The shoulders and sleeves of the vest were also of the same design. I had made it in Ered Luin. A testimony of the skills I had mastered. The vambraces I donned were of elvish making, leather also, but with metal reinforcements designed to look like the curling leaves of a budding tree. Finally, I pulled on my Rohirrim riding boots, and belted my elvish sword and scabbard. A dwarvish knife was strapped to each thigh and I slung my bow over my shoulder. That was from home. The recurve bow was made with the melding of bamboo and Oliphant horn. The horn made the belly and the back of the bow, while the bamboo curved out as the upper and lower limbs. With the materials only found in the East and the composite bow had a tensile strength that none of the single wood bows here in the West had. I was armed and ready.

Slinging my bag over my other shoulder, I headed downstairs. Passing the kitchens, I called out to one of the fat cooks and he tossed a muffin and apple to me. Taking a bite from the muffin and tucking the apple in my pocket, I stepped out into the courtyard and towards the stables.

My horse was waiting happily in the stables, snorting, as it seemed, between _sixteen_ ponies with provisions and bags and sleeping rolls tied to their backs. The dwarves had stabled them there, it seemed; yesterday before they got to the party.

"Oof!" I pitched forward. Someone had slapped my back.

"Good mornin," It was Bofur.

"Good morning to you," I made a face at him as he sauntered off.

I turned to the gate. A few more dwarves were strolling in, laughing and pushing one another around. Thorin walked slowly in the back with Gandalf. I called a good morning to the rest of them and set to tying my things to my saddle. It seemed that someone had already tied a bag of provisions to my saddle that was hung on the stall door.

"Communal," Bombur noted to me as he saw my peering into the sack of food.

"Of course," I sighed.

I flung the saddle over my horse and readjusted it to my liking. Shining gently, the sun was a good omen for our quest. A bubble swelled in my chest. I loved starting new journeys. It was as if I were writing a new story or starting anew in a life.

I buckled the last strap on and led my horse out of the stables. With a coat of deep brown and not too light of a structure, he was my companion on all my journeys except for the sea voyages of course. I left him with the elves at Lindon whenever I travelled by ship. I patted his nose. Snuffling at my pocket eagerly, I gave up and handed it over.

"Oh, Fatty. This is your before journey treat. It'll be tussocks of grass for you soon enough,"

He crunched happily. I had just brushed him the day before and his coat gleamed in the light. The shaggy ponies the dwarves had were soon lined up in the courtyard with their riders. Three ponies were rider-less but carried heavier loads on their back. One was intended originally for the hobbit, but he was nowhere to be seen. Gandalf whistled loudly and his white horse cantered from down the road somewhere and trotted in. I strode over to him.

"Did he truly decide not to come?" I said in a low voice.

Gandalf gave me an irritated look, "I left him the contract. We'll see,"

"What are you two mumbling about?" It was Fili.

I gave him a cheeky grin. "Just decided how much we were going to bet that Bilbo does come on the quest."

"Betting?!" I heard Nori's rarely used voice crop up.

"I'm in!" Kili swaggered over eagerly.

Soon, the rest of the dwarves joined in and we were placing our bets against one another. Ori stood at the side, a little forlorn.

"Do you not want to bet?" I asked him kindly.

"My mum told me I shouldn't bet and Dori won't let me,"

"A little won't hurt. Let's say you and I work as a team. What are you going to bet?"

He looked at me, a little flabbergast. "I –I... I bet that Bilbo _is_ going to come!" He hesitated. "But what if he doesn't?"

"I lose ten silver pieces." I shrugged. "Besides, I think your choice is quite a wise one."

He grinned like a little horse and looked like he was about to burst. I went back into the throng and found Thorin.

"Bilbo will come, you know,"

He gave me an exasperated glance, "He will not. We left him snoring in his bed."

"Ten silver pieces that Bilbo comes,"

"I don't gamble,"

"What is this quest then?"

"Fine, ten silver pieces, to me, when he does not come,"

"Very confident, King under the Mountain," I gave him a little mock bow and slipped off to my horse. His expression was caught between annoyance and a budding smile –a funny combination –as if someone had stepped on his toes.

We set off soon after that. The roads were wider here on the edges of the Shire and we could ride in pairs. Thorin rode by himself at the front. I ended up beside Kili. His brother and Dwalin rode in front of us and Thorin ahead of them. I didn't say much at the beginning of the ride as we passed under oaks, elms, and maple trees rustling in the gentle breeze. Dappled shade swirled on the backs of our horses.

"Might I enquire your age," Kili asked politely.

I laughed at his formality. "Guess,"

He squinted at me. "Between twenty and thirty,"

"Not even close,"

"What?!"

Fili turned around, "I'd say thirty two,"

Dwalin's spoke without turning, "She's about sixty."

"You're joking." Kili's mouth fell open.

"But you should be old and wrinkly!" Fili frowned.

"I'm a descendant of both common man and Numenoreans."

"Thorin said you were from the East –there are no Numenoreans there," Kili reminded.

I shrugged, "They weren't the Numenoreans who came and established the kingdoms here. Well, here, they're known as the Black Numenoreans." Their eyes turned wide, "You do realize that blood doesn't matter in the end. I got their long life-span, but it doesn't mean I have their lovely tendency to dabble in black magic and torture. Besides my other side and most of my family really descends from Bor –the only Easterling that helped fight against Morgoth in the first battles that cleaved this ancient earth in two. Our ancestors fought next to each other you know. Well, my good ones anyway. The Black Numenoreans were long from existence yet."

"How far east are you _from_?" Fili asked.

"Further than Rhun. My home is past the Sea of Rhun and past the deserts that lay after and in the tropical heat of the seas that lay on the other side of this land. It is so very different there. Seasons have such little change there –winter comes with merely more rain and a little cooler temperature and the trees never drop their leaves. The animals grow massive there –Oliphants, giant black and yellow stripped cats, bears that are white and have black markings and eat nothing but leaves, odd horny lizards with terrible sharp teeth that are as big as your pony, and snakes that are long enough to wrap around you many times and would swallow you whole. The seas are full of colourful fish and the skies full of brilliantly plumaged birds. The forests of Harad lay to our south, and if we go further still, their deserts full of even stranger beasts. The massive storms and endless rain marked the end of the summers. The fruits there are all sweet and soft and full of juice and all odd shapes or with horny spines." I could taste them now. And feel the unbearable hot, moist air on my arms and the warm, soothing rain on my face. Thorin still rode up ahead. I wondered if he was listening. He had heard this all before, of course. He had wanted to see those things, once. Or perhaps he still did.

"Why did you leave?" Kili asked.

The question had been asked of me many times before. Every time I told my story someone would ask. "I had seen all I wanted to see there. My world was not big enough –I had to travel and adventure to expand it. The trees and towns and people and animals there could only hold my childhood. I grew up. I needed more." I wanted to live more than one life. Books used to satisfy that, but I yearned to take more in –I had to see these places, not just imagine them through words.

A sudden yelling from behind stopped us.

"Why are we stopping, Gandalf?" complained Dori.

We all turned.

"Look," was all Gandalf simply said.

I turned my gaze to the direction he was looking in. My face broke into a grin. A little figure weighed down by a pack and waving something fluttery in his hand jumped over a fence and was sprinting towards us. As he neared, the dwarves all laughed or scoffed in surprise.

"I signed it," Bilbo Baggins panted as he slowed and stopped. He handed the contract to Balin.

I nudged my horse out of the column and paced up to Thorin.

Balin declared, "Everything seems to be in order. Welcome Master Baggins, to the Company of Thorin Oakenshield."

"He came," I pointed out.

"I can see that," Thorin snapped. He started off again and column slowly moved forward.

"He had the wits to figure out where to cut us off," I turned back at the little hobbit who was now huffing and puffing as he started walking alongside us, walking stick in hand.

Thorin called back, "Someone, give him a pony,"

A panicked reply came from behind, "That really won't be necessary –I can keep up fine on foot! I've done my share of walking holidays –," I heard a strangled yelp and a thump. I glanced back –the hobbit had been picked up off the ground and deposited on a pony. Soon the sound of coin bags being thrown about reached my ears.

"He came," I mentioned again to Thorin riding resolutely beside me.

He grunted.

"Don't grunt at me,"

"That wasn't a grunt,"

"What was it then, flatulence?"

I heard Fili choke behind me. Thorin threw a little bag of coins at me. I caught it.

"Thank you, King under the Mountain,"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

Our first three days were spent wandering along the Great East Road through the hobbit lands. There were comfortable inns and singing and joking as we went along. I promised Fili, Kili, and a shy Bilbo to tell them a story about my travels every day. Usually, Fili and Kili would want me to go on after I finished an episode of sorts, but Bilbo always got a dreamy look on his face and just told me to save it for later. I could see that the hobbit was not as averse to adventure as he was before. I felt a little sorry for him, since I knew that after we passed out of the Shire, he would be in for a nasty shock as we neared the Misty Mountains and left the warm, rolling hills of his home behind us.

We had left Bree the day before and this would be our first night in the true wilderness. I knew there were a few farmers and shepherds and hunters who lived around those parts, but they were scattered and mostly kept to themselves. As the day progressed, we climbed higher and higher on rockier roads and the trees became pines and firs and cedars. We had travelled for a week already.

Night had fallen and Thorin chose a clearing on the edge of a cliff a little ways off the road. I smiled as we all lead our steeds into the forest. The clearing was well-known to me, as it was quite a frequently inhabited place by all sorts of travellers on the road. I had stayed there a few times before. I had usually been alone or with some drivers or escorts when I was working as a courier. Being there with thirteen dwarves, a hobbit and a wizard leant a wonderful safeness to the dark and solemn surrounding woods. The clearing was almost surrounded by these massive outcrops of rock that served as a wind barrier and a place to rest our backs.

"Dinner!" Bombur banged his pots together and we all scrambled over.

As we sat around the fire in a messy circle, Kili, Fili, and Bilbo wandered over. I had already told them about how after I turned twenty-one; I went off with one of the trade caravans destined for Rhun. After passing the sea of Rhun, I had come to Lake Town and soon began working as a pole-man for the caskets and barrels that were poled up the river to Thranduil's kingdom in the Northern Greenwood. We never got to see any of the elves, of course. They seldom left the woods and we just left the barrels tied to a tree where the river flowed from under the eaves of the forest and the next day, the elves would pole it up the river themselves. Besides, the forest was dangerous wherever you were and no one was very eager to be stuck on a barge of barrels and poling against the current in the darkness of the trees. Until me, anyway. I had decided to pole the barrels up myself. I was stupid and rash back then, but perhaps it was well that I had done what I had done, or my travels would have certainly not have started. I had my bow and my arrows on my back, but that was it. I was still poling when it got dark. My arms felt like they were ready to detach and fling themselves into the water. I was hungry and tired, but I realized I could not stop because there was simply nothing to grab a hold of. If I stopped, I would float all the way back and have to start all over again. Unfortunately, the water got rougher and the river began to slope steeply upward. Luckily, the trees also began to close in on the banks and I was able to grab onto a branch and keep my feet hooked onto the ropes that bound my barrel raft together. With a splash, my pole had hit the water as I struggled to hold onto the bouncing branch. I cussed loud enough to wake a troll. As I quieted, the forest came alive around me –odd calls and rustlings. Realizing what I had done, I smacked my own face and nearly lost my grip on the branch. I never ran off into the forests at night back east. I wasn't sure why I had done that in the Greenwood.

I had begun to shout.

Eyes began to blink into existence in the darkness around me. I stopped yelling. I snatched an arrow out of my quiver to use as a knife.

Whoosh! –A light blinded me and something cold was at my neck.

I blinked madly.

I was surrounded by men. But they were all tall and slim and beautiful and young. And, there had been a knife at my neck. It was held there by a blond man with porcelain skin and blue eyes that frightened me with their age.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was mellifluous.

"I –I was poling." I gulped. The knife was very cold. "I was poling the barrels up,"

"That is not your part –we do that ourselves."

Elves!

"Who are you?"

"Tallis –Tallismae... I'm from the east, who are you?"

He looked surprised that I had answered so willingly. "I am Legolas, son of King Thranduil,"

"You don't look like a prince," I blurted.

He frowned at me, a little confused.

"I mean, princes back at home never go wandering in the woods at night –they stay in their palaces and where golden robes and don't go outside much."

He didn't say a thing.

"May I be let onto land? My arms are sore and the knife is really unnecessary and someone needs to hold onto the barrels or all my hard work will be for nothing."

I supposed they judged me of little threat and complied. Their movements were graceful but I fell as I tried jumping to the bank. I was very wet when I wiggled up onto the bank.

"Come with us," the prince of the elves had said curtly.

And I did. The stories I told the dwarves and Bilbo afterwards were simple really. After I was taken to Thranduil's caves, blindfolded, mind you, I was kept there as a guest, or rather, a prisoner. The King was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, but he had a cold, wild fire in his eyes that never missed a thing. The night they brought me back, I told them of the east, of my home. Thranduil was captivated, but he did not show it. Perhaps that is why they treated me kindly. I became a sort of servant and worked hard. The elves were aloof and removed, but Legolas and I became unlikely friends after he had marvelled at my bow and my skills when I had shot an arrow that had pierced through the target. Though it didn't hit the center mark, the elves became more interested in me after I had shown them my strength and willingness to work. Slowly, they took me out on hunting incursions and taught me how to fight with their weapons. I learned some of their language. The forest, however, was still strange to me. I followed them carefully whenever we went out, for no matter how many times I tried, I could not find any way to distinguish path or clearing from the other. Trees and little streams and rocks seemed to shift and change every time I tried to memorize their places. I spent five years there. When I brought down my first deer on horseback, with my bow, I realized that I needed to leave. There was still more of the world out there and I was in such a small corner!

I had asked for Thranduil's leave, but he had refused. I was exasperated. I knew none of their secrets. I could not find my way back to his halls. Wasn't that what he worried about?

That night, Legolas told me to pack my things. He took me south.

"Your ada will think you betrayed him," I mentioned.

"He will have endless days, endless years to forgive me," He shrugged.

So, we went south. He handed me over to the elves in Lothlorien. I stayed but two years there. The elves valued cultivating patience and wisdom and knowledge: the latter I had a fierce taste for. Luckily, the elves seemed to have seen my potential in the first and kindly guided my learning in Lorien, and my only meeting of Lady Galadriel resulted in her smiling gently at me, nodding approvingly at my teacher –Haldir, Marchwarden of Lothlorien –and teasingly told him take my wisdom as an example for himself at times. The uncharacteristic grunt that she elicited from him was worth all the strict and harsh regimes he had set for my training.

As I left that life behind, I realized that I had a gift for drawing people to me with my stories. I was able to adapt to all sorts of cultures and races, and the sunny disposition I had made others happy. All things want to be happy. And what made me happy was learning and making myself rich with stories and songs and history. I headed to Rohan next and stayed mostly in the Edoras. The Rohirrim trusted good riders who knew how to care for their steeds like children and good mead drinkers. I had come to them from the elves who had taught me much about horses already and that knowledge opened up the trust of the Rohirrim. Mead had been an acquired taste, however. I spent another five years there, learning to ride by day, and learning to hold my drink by night. Gondor was next. I dabbled in medicine and book binding and mastered weaving in Minas Tirith and sweated in a smithy in Belfalas. The things I made were mostly ship and cart parts –things that were vital to the flourishing trade there. With each place I came to, I started a new life and mastered an art and ended the story and moved on. It was freeing and at times I could not believe the life I was living. It was as if I had chosen the best parts of the books I had read as a child and strung them all together. Rivendell was next.

"Rivendell is for another time," I told Bilbo. It was the only time he had begged me to continue. "Perhaps we shall go there soon," I whispered to him as he was getting ready to curl up in his bed roll. He smiled a sweet as a child.

Fili and Kili tumbled off to lean against a rock wall and smoke their pipes. I unrolled my bedroll and tucked myself in with my cloak folded into a pillow for my head. Some of the dwarves did the same as I did but some of the others still sat about the fire or leaned against the rock face and smoked. Bombur's cooking was delicious and my tummy made a happy grumbly noise as it digested the beef stew. Ah, if this adventure went on like this, I would be as fat as Bombur at the end of it.

As my eyelids began to droop, Bilbo got up. He had been wriggling for a while. He had probably been lying on a stone or a root. Not making a sound, he tiptoed over to the ponies and furtively ferried an apple from his pocket to little Myrtle's smacking lips. He murmured something to her and patted her snuffling nose as she crunched madly and began nudging the hobbit's pockets.

Something rustled and flapped.

My heart leapt to my throat as my arm shot out for my sword beside me. It took a moment before I recognized it as the soft wings of a crow.

"Just a bird, lassie," Dwalin grunted beside me.

"I know," I breathed out slowly.

He turned and propped himself up on his elbow. "You're on edge,"

"Being a courier means I've got to be alert. The roads are not so safe anymore. You know that –even back in the days before I was in Ered Luin."

"Aye,"

_Screech!_

We both jumped a little but we both knew it was the voice of a screech owl.

"What was that?" Bilbo's voice quavered.

"Orcs." Kili answered, his voice deep, menacing.

"Orcs?" Bilbo trembled.

Poor Bilbo. I exchanged a look with Dwalin and was about to tell them to bugger off when Fili continued.

"Throat cutters, there'll be dozens of them out there." he said, "The lower lands are crawling with them."

Kili's voice was quiet, like someone telling a ghost story, "They strike in the small hours when people are asleep. Quick and quiet, no screams. Just lots of blood."

Bilbo looked ready to implode. Kili and Fili exchanged a glance and burst into chuckles.

A hard voice cut through their laughter, "You think that is funny? You think that a night raid by orcs is a joke?" Thorin strode angrily past them and headed to the edge of the cliff.

"We didn't mean anything by it..." Kili winced.

"No, you didn't. You know nothing," came the angry reply and Kili and Fili both shrank back a little.

Everyone else sat or lay in awkward silence like a group of scolded children. I hated it when someone got yelled at and everyone else feels somehow reprimanded also.

"Don't worry about him laddie, he has more reason than most to hate orcs." And thus Balin began his telling of Thorin and Azog the Pale Orc during the Battle of Azanulbizar at the West-gates of Moria. I let my mind drift with Balin's gentle voice. I had heard the tale many times when I sat by the fires in the halls of Ered Luin. When night would come and the stars peeped through the smoke holes in the roofs of the halls, the dwarves would finish their suppers and gather about the sizzling embers and sing, smoke, and tell tales. Thorin would always look so angry and grieved and uncomfortable whenever the story was told. It was a favorite, so there was no avoiding it. I still remember when the story ended the first time I heard it and I had looked at him with my eyes shining and he had returned my gaze with something just as full of emotion, but as hard and hot as the fires in the forges. I had felt a little frightened of him for the first time then, as I suddenly realized the depths of his rage and his sorrow.

I was jarred back to the present as Balin finished the tale with his usual flourish.

"And it was then that I knew I would follow him. Here was one I could call king,"

* Tallis and Thorin actually have a conversation in the next chapter and I think I'll develop that more. This chapter was more of a filler again.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter five

It poured for the next few days. We were all soaking and dripping and cranky. The fires never started unless Gandalf used his powers and the food was generally cold and seasoned by the rain. The path became so muddy that sometimes we had to dismount and lead our ponies and horses carefully through the churning mud. All of us were caked in the black stuff up to our knees. Dori, Ori, and Nori however, where completely covered in the stuff. When we had to walk our horses off the path to get around a particularly horrible stretch, Nori had patted his pony and sent it off in our line and decided to hop across the mud. I supposed he was sick of the huddling and wanted to stretch and move, so he leapt from some bigger stones in the puddle to a long and very thick branch in the middle of the path that had fallen there. He skipped along, sometimes even jumping and turning in the air and landing facing the path behind us.

"Show-off," muttered Gloin behind me, whose beard was matted and little rivets of water poured off the ends.

We suddenly heard a, "Ori, don't!" from Gloin.

The silly little dwarf had decided to follow his older brother into the mud. He teetered and swayed from one rock to the next, but he still made it onto the branch wobbling like a man on stilts. Nori was laughing and beckoning Ori to walk towards him.

Dori cursed and let go of his pony. "Nori! You bring him back here!"

Nori gave his older brother a cheeky little grin and did a cartwheel on the branch. Ori gasped and quivered but still stood. Dori was fuming.

"Don't do it," Oin warned, but Dori began to negotiate his way towards his little brothers.

I heard Thorin groan from up ahead. "All three of you –get back to your ponies, _now_,"

"Nori!" I yelled. What on earth was he doing? He was jumping on the branch and Ori, like an idiot did the same. I scrunched up my face and prepared for the ensuing damage.

_Splat. _Dori had put his foot on the bouncing branch, and (surprise, surprise) had lost his footing, kicked the branch and sent all three of them flopping into the mud. No one laughed. Except for Fili and Kili, who both emitted a bark and a shout of laughter before they realized they were the only ones doing so. The three of them waded out slowly and brought back a stinking ton of the muck on them. Poor little Ori was on the verge of tears as I tried my best to scrape the gunk off of him. Thorin was on the verge of cutting down a tree.

It was like this we journeyed until we passed over the bridge of the River Hoarwell and the clouds finally scattered and the sun beat down on the forest of beeches around us. The path opened up and the trees receded back and meadows of mountain flowers were seen through the sparser trees.

We dried out and our spirits were renewed.

"We'll stop here tonight," Thorin found an abandoned farm that seemed to have been burned down.

We all staggered after him and threw down our bags. The ponies were being herded up behind us by Dori, Gloin, and Dwalin. Bombur flopped onto his back and from where I stood; I could only see the rounding of his belly at the top of the wild brother Bofur walked by and gave him a slap on his rotund middle but Bombur only moaned. He was too tired to retaliate.

Thorin was wandering towards the fallen timbers of the farmhouse. "Fili, Kili," he threw over his shoulder, "Watch the ponies and make sure you stay with them. Oin, Gloin, get a fire started."

Gandalf strode past me as I unpacked my bag. "I knew the farmer and his family who once lived here," he looked troubled. "I think it would be wiser to move on." He came up to Thorin, "We could make for the Hidden Valley."

Thorin suddenly turned, a note of hate in his voice. "I've told you already, I will not go near that place."

"Why not? The elves could help us. We could get food, rest, advice."

"I do not need their advice." Stubborn fool.

"We have a map that we cannot read. Lord Elrond could help us."

"Help? A dragon attacks Erebor, what help came from the elves?"

"I did not give you that map and key so you could hold on to the past."

"I did not know they were yours to keep."

Gandalf spun and walked towards us again. He did not stop though, he kept right on going.

"Everything alright, Gandalf?" Bilbo asked, clueless as can be. "Where are you going?"

"To seek the company from the only one around here who makes any sense." The wizard snapped.

"Who's that?" Bilbo asked.

"Myself, Mister Baggins!" With that, he marched off back from where we came from.

Night came quickly. Thorin still paced in the frame of the ruined house. Sitting by the fire, I watched his stony form until I decided to bring him his share of the food. I ladled some stew into a wooden bowl and picked my way over towards him.

"Are you hungry?"

He turned, startled. "No," he replied immediately.

"You mean: Yes." I corrected and passed the bowl to him. He took it a little too roughly. He _was_ hungry. Giving him a reproving look mixed with amusement, I found a fallen timber and sat down on it after running my hands across to check for any wayward nails. Thorin joined me and settled with the clinks of his brigandine mail shirt. I turned to him and found his unsettlingly closer than I expected. My breath caught for a moment, but his clear eyes stared into the darkness ahead of him and did not hold me in their thrall. I took a halting breath and looked up at the stars. They shimmered warmly in the spring sky.

Words tumbled out of my mouth. "Do you remember watching the stars from the cliffs of Ered Luin?"

He glanced sharply at me, the bowl in his lap untouched and still steaming. His face softened. "Yes,"

I could feel the reverberations of his voice of velvet stones in my chest. His eyes found mine. Trying to search into the depths of his gaze, I blinked in disappointment as he broke away first. I wondered if he was remembering.

I was.

.

.

I had been in Ered Luin for about a year. It was high summer and the forges blazed by day and night time came surprisingly with little relief from the heat. I had tossed and turned on my bed with a nightgown for an hour. Stripping off the gown and lying on the ground helped for a little while, but the air was stagnant wherever I relocated myself within the confines of my room. In desperation, I had put back on the gown with disgust and gone to Thorin's forge in search of a smaller set of bellows so that I could get the air in my room to move a little. However, all that accomplished in the end were lines of sweat running down my back. I had slunk back to the forge to return the bellows and tripped over Thorin who had fallen asleep on his workbench.

"Thorin!"

There was a blade in his hand.

"Thorin!"

He had blinked at me in the darkness and dropped his dagger. Heart pounding, I picked myself off the ground and sat down heavily next to him. He rubbed his eyes blearily.

"What were you doing with my bellows in the middle of the night?"

"I was... I was trying to cool down my room,"

He chuckled sleepily. "You won't find any relief anywhere down here."

A sudden idea sparked. "Let's go," I had shoved him playfully. He didn't even lean over. It was like shoving a rock.

"Where?" he muttered.

"Outside. Let's go see the stars."

"You can see the stars from the halls through the smoke holes,"

I groaned. "Smoke holes?" I scoffed. "Please, I need to feel the air on my skin." When he didn't reply, I gave him a mischievous smile. "I promise never to hum that elvish tune again while I'm working," with that, I fumbled for his hand and pulled. I nearly toppled into him.

His hand had tightened around mine.

Something opened a sweet hollowness in my throat. Unguarded, his eyes held me mercilessly as I felt my lips part.

"Fine," he whispered and got up. "I will hold you to that promise."

He lead me through the quite halls of the city and up a set of stairs that wound up the side of the caverns until we reached a tunnel that wormed its way to a set of stone doors we both had to push to get open. It was only then that he had let go of me. We stepped onto a cliff carpeted by long mountain grass and a spindly looking pine clung to the edge of the rock. A puff of wind swept my hair right off of my sticky neck and I laughed outright at the delicious feeling as I spun. I stopped suddenly, feeling dizzy as I realized I was nearer to the edge of the cliff than I expected. I backed up slowly.

Thorin came up to my side, concern on his face.

"I don't like heights," I explained breathlessly.

We sat down in the grass and lay down. The stars winked at us merrily and the wind sometimes would catch the ends of my curled locks and sweep them over my face teasingly.

"They look the same,"

I had turned my head to look him lying beside me. I knew what he was referring to. Erebor. I turned up to the sky again. "They look almost the same everywhere. But they were very strange when I first came here. They have different shapes back home." We lay in silence for a while. I had cooled down, but I could feel the heat of his body though we were not touching. His hair was still all black then and a little shorter than it was now, though he had barely changed physically.

"Do you ever feel alone?" his voice was sad.

"No." I belonged with myself. I wasn't travelling and living in all these different places because I was looking for a place to belong. Learning made me wise. I wasn't looking for my happiness, I was maintaining it. At ease with myself, I knew I could be solitary and not be lonely and belong anywhere and everywhere. But with his words, my reply had suddenly felt empty and untrue.

He turned to me, his lips softly making his words. "Not all who wander are lost,"

I smiled at him then and my chest expanded with something light and dulcet but so bitter and piercing all the same. Swallowing it, I closed my eyes. "Goodnight, Thorin," I whispered. He was the only one who understood. A friend like this was hard to come by.

"Goodnight, Tallis," I shivered sweetly as he said my name and felt safe.

As I had drifted off, I was not sure whether he had brushed my hair from my face, or if it was just the wind.

.

.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. The stars dimmed a little. I could hear a dwarf yelling about ants off by the fire.

His jaw clenched.

I didn't know what else to say. I was afraid he was going to say something that would hurt, but he kept on looking away from me. I wanted him to look at me. I wanted him to look at me the way he did when he held my hand in his large, calloused ones that devilishly hot night in the forge and spoke to me with his heart though his fingers though at the time I was too stupid and too self-absorbed to see what was in front of me. My fingers found the delicate chain around my neck.

He stood abruptly. I did not stop him as he made his way to the fire. Instead, I stared off into the darkness with an odd soreness in my throat that I could not swallow.

.

.

.

*trolls up next!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter six

"Tallis, are you alright?" It was Bilbo.

"Yes," I lied.

"Do you think Gandalf will come back?"

I smiled at him gently. "Yes," I turned and looked at the dwarves still talking laughing away. Thorin sat among them, but did not join in the tomfoolery. It was odd seeing him in all this metal and fur. In Ered Luin, he had worn only his loose-fitting leather britches and a rough blue linen shirt with the laces undone at the top. I suddenly realized the absence of Kili's and Fili's voices. I turned to Bilbo. "Get some food to Fili and Kili –I'm surprised they didn't come looking for food themselves. They must be starving. They've never been so diligent with the ponies before."

Bilbo nodded and pattered off and I was on my own again.

I wasn't sure what I was to do next. There was little I could do about Thorin, so I got up, dusted myself off and strode towards the warmth of the fire.

"And where have you been, lassie?" Bofur insolently called as I approached.

"Sitting on a piece of wood," I replied brusquely.

"Have yer now?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Go wipe your arse with your beard," I snapped and turned away from him, catching a ghost of a smile on Thorin's face for a moment. My heart gave a little shout of triumph.

Oin had not heard my sulky replies and shouted across the fire, "Tallis! Tell us of how you met Thorin and Dwalin and Gloin!"

Not again. "You can tell it yourself by now," I answered. He looked disappointed and I couldn't bear it so I started reluctantly. "I was riding in the woods trying to take down a buck –,"

Dwalin cut in, "With a few elves," and he spat. I wasn't worried. He did that every time I told the story.

"–_And,_ I strayed from the group as they pursued a herd. I charged my horse through a thicket after a buck that had broken away from the group."

"You chased after it for a day and a night!" Ori exclaimed.

"Not quite that long,"

"And you heard the sounds of a fierce battle being waged up ahead, so you left the buck and went galloping towards a clearing." Gloin grunted nonchalantly.

"There I found three dwarves who had been fighting against at least a dozen orcs. Most of the orcs lay dead or dying, and Gloin was out cold –,"

"Feinting," He corrected.

"Of course. As Gloin feinted bravely with his face in the dirt, I stepped out hesitantly. One of the dwarves was badly wounded, and blood was seeping from his side."

.

.

.

_"Elf!"_ Thorin had cried at the sight of me and was too hurt to lift his sword. Balin was poised to throw and axe. I dropped my bow.

"I'm not an elf!" I had cried and lifted my hair up and back to reveal my rounded ears.

"You're dressed like one," Balin snarled.

I was confused. What was that supposed to mean? "Your friend needs help –I can take him to Rivendell –,"

"NO." Thorin had stopped his shallow panting long enough to utter the one word. He blue eyes had been clouded with pain.

"Well, you're going to die, otherwise," I replied.

"Dwarves are not as breakable as you humans are," Dwalin grunted. "Just leave us."

"I won't until I see that your friend is out of danger and the other wakes up. I have some healing skills –,"

"Keep your distance,"

"Fine," I sat down.

The two dwarves glared at me. The other one still lay with his face in the dirt.

"You should turn him on his side," I suggested. "The one on his face, I mean,"

Dwalin was silent, but turned Gloin over anyway.

"You do realize that your friend won't be going anywhere with that gaping hole in his side without bleeding to death."

Dwalin watched me warily.

"You could at least clean his wound and stitch it close."

Dwalin stared at me. Thorin blinked with glazed eyes. Dwalin sighed and had begun to undo Thorin's belt. He struggled to keep Thorin from collapsing onto the ground and remove the belt at the same time. I got up. Dwalin's free hand jumped to his axe again but I moved towards him slowly anyway.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I knelt down slowly on Thorin's left side and began undoing his brigandine shirt. Thorin had tried to push me away, but I persisted and he soon gave up. His eyes burned with a feverish hate. I returned it with a toothy grin. He looked a little lost after that.

Dwalin silently began to undo Thorin's belt and the right side of the brigandine shirt. I glanced over and saw that it had once been crushed before and not been fixed, so an orc blade had found an easy way to tickle his ribs. Slowly, we lifted the brigandine shirt off of him and carefully tore the linen shirt he had on underneath. The cut was not too deep, but licked up from his waist to his arm.

"Start a fire and give me your wine bag," I ordered.

Dwalin obeyed. After I had sewn Thorin up, and stopped a newly awakened Gloin from trying cut my with his axe, I asked their names. They replied in turn. Thorin watched me still with a disbelieving dislike, but thanked me.

"I am in your debt," he paused, "woman," he ended. Well, he didn't know my name.

"Tallis," I corrected.

"Tallis," he said my name, tasting it for the first time. "Thank you,"

"I won't tell the elves," it was more than obvious that these dwarves had a quarrel with them.

Thorin nodded.

"I'm off then," I had gotten up, wiped my bloody hands on his torn shirt and gave it back to him.

I wandered off back to my horse and with a last wave of farewell and a glance at the stunned dwarves, I rode away.

A day later, I wandered aimlessly around the bridge the elves had set as our meeting point lest anyone wandered off. I was a little earlier on arrival and I threw stones in the river for a while until they arrived. Huredhiel was Lady Arwen's handmaiden I had grown close to and she thundered over the bridge when she saw me skipping stones.

"Where have you been? We brought down enough for the Autumn feast!"

"I was held up," I paused so she leaned nearer, "You can't tell anyone."

"What is it?" Huredhiel's eyes shone. She was intensely young for an elf –only 500 years old. She had not quite grown into her patience or her tranquility, it seemed. Sometimes I wondered if age really brought wisdom. She had stayed in Rivendell for most of her life and only was allowed to venture a day's ride from the vale. She itched constantly to run off.

"I –I met some dwarves three days ago."

She gasped. "Dwarves!"

"And they had fought a dozen orcs at least. I didn't ask why they were there or fighting the orcs. One of them had a serious wound, so I sewed him up."

"Were they hairy?"

I frowned at her, "Yes,"

"Were they handsome?"

"Is that all you think about?"

"What else can I do? I live forever."

"Maybe," I thought about a pair of feverish blue eyes, a deep voice, and a chiselled chest the torn shirt had revealed.

Later when we ate our provisions, she had turned to me and mused quite frankly, "I wonder if what they lack in size they make up for in their manhoods."

I violently inhaled a piece of my bread.

.

.

.

After I finished the story at where I left the dwarves in the clearing, Bombur and Ori had fallen asleep. The dwarves cheered as I got up and bowed.

"Get up! Get up! Trolls! Trolls got Bilbo and the ponies!"

We all spun as Fili came flying out of the trees.

"Where's is Kili?" Thorin demanded as he unsheathed his sword.

Fili gasped out, "He stayed behind just in case if the trolls –,"

"Go!" Thorin shouted.

We raced after Fili and plunged into the forest. Sword in hand, I outstripped nearly everyone with my longer legs. Thorin barreled under the branches beside me, but I had to duck frantically to avoid the smacks of the branches to my face. I realized with a start that it was the first time Thorin and I would have ever fought together. There was a clearing up ahead lit by the light of a great fire and the sounds of a scuffle. A few deep, growly voices grunted and argued. A taunting reply reached our ears. It was Kili.

"Come get me fatheads!"

Oh no. A few loud yells and crashes travelled to our ears as we neared. I could see the great forms of three monstrous trolls swatting and stomping about. Thorin roared and we all raised our weapons and barreled into the clearing. I had barely a second to glance about before I had to hit the ground and roll as a fist as big as a boulder swung at me wildly. I dove between a pair of legs and sliced horizontally and scrambled out of the way as a knee buckled and drove into the dirt. I was about to congratulate myself when the leg straightened and the rest of the troll it was connected to uttered a few curses in my direction and stomped towards me.

"What's this?" It thundered, "I fink it's a nice tender layday for the pickin',"

Cutting uselessly at its horny hands as it bore down on me, I cried out in frustration.

It suddenly squealed as Bifur slammed his axe into its gonads. I leapt around it and hacked mercilessly at its hindquarters before it knocked me over towards the fire. Dodging the flames, I crouched down as Bofur leapt over me and poked another troll in the side with his axe. A stone whistled past an inch from my face. I turned sharply as Ori made a face of pure terror and apology in my direction and scuttled about dodging legs and arms and axes. Dwarves were furiously cutting and stabbing and running and rolling in every direction. I leapt back up and dove at a wayward troll foot and the big fool stepped right on my sword as I rolled away. The sword was still in the troll's foot as it hopped haphazardly around and knocked over Bombur and Balin. Suddenly realizing the error of my judgment, my hand jumped for my bow, but I had left it back in the camp. I had two daggers and nothing else then. I threw one at an incoming hand and it struck flesh. The troll roared but swiped at Fili without hesitating at the pain. Fili gave it a devilish grin and tumbled away and swiped at its ankles. One dagger left. I suddenly found Thorin at my side as two trolls closed in on either side of us each with a horde of dwarves dancing about their feet. I felt his back meet mine. As two pairs of hands descended, we both dove sideways and came up with a slash, simultaneously parrying away the trolls. I jumped and kicked off of one troll's shin and barreled into the other's thigh and my dagger made a satisfying rend before I was flung off. It staggered back and I turned to the other that Thorin, Kili, Gloin and Oin were preoccupied with.

"STOP!" It was a troll. Two of them had Bilbo by the arms and legs, stretching the poor hobbit like a sheet. We all scrambled towards him. Thorin stood at the forefront of the gathered company, trying to hold back Kili.

"Drop your weapons, or we'll pull 'im to pieces,"

I watched Thorin as he glared back at the troll, his sword still raised and unmoving. We waited. He growled in frustration and stabbed his sword into the dirt. Kili cried out in rage as we all threw our weapons down. The third troll who was not holding Bilbo picked my sword from its foot and deposited it in a bush. By their conversations, the leader seemed to be the biggest one names Bill. The one I stabbed was smaller and the other two smacked him around. He was Tom and the other one was Bert.

Soon, we were tied up tightly in burlap sacks. Thorin, Bilbo, Kili, Fili, Gloin, Oin, Bombur, and Balin were thrown in a pile while Bifur, Bofur, Ori, Dori, Nori, and Dwalin were stripped down to their underclothes and tied to a massive spit over the fire. Tom picked me up.

"She won't need no cookin',"

"YES I WILL!" I screamed in his face.

"Oh, very well, then, if that is what you'd like," he said, a little taken aback.

"Put her on the spit," Bert said.

So my boots and leather jerkin and armour all came off.

"There's no space," the Tom complained.

"Just tie me up on top, I'm thin," I suggested desperately.

They tied me on top of Dwalin. He was highly unimpressed.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, as I accidentally put my foot in his face. I was lashed on with my head between his legs and his between mine. I was going to die of humiliation. I hoped we got cooked fast. Every time they turned the spit, Dwalin's weight shifted onto me and I was so close to the fire I thought I was going to be licked by the flames. Just as my hair began to singe and my torso felt like it was to be ripped from my limbs, the spit would turn and I would have a few moments of relief before I went under again.

"We don't have to cook 'em, let's just sit on 'em and squash 'em into jelly!" Bert grumbled.

Bill slapped his belly, "They should be saut ed and grilled with a sprinkle of sage."

"That does sound quite nice..." Tom licked his lips.

"Never mind the seasoning, we don't got all night!" Bert cried. "Dawn is not far away. Let's get a move on, I don't fancy being turned into stone."

"Wait!" It was Bilbo's voice. I craned my neck, trying to see. He had stood up in the sack. "You are making a terrible mistake."

"You can't reason with them, they're half-wits!" Balin warned.

"Then what does that make us?" Bofur yelled back.

"I meant with the seasoning." Bilbo continued.

"What about the seasoning?" Bill squinted at the hobbit. He stopped turning the spit and luckily Dwalin and I were settled nicely on the top, while Nori cooked uncomfortably below.

"Well, have you smelt them? You're going to need something stronger than sage before you can get close to these ones," he said.

"What do you know about cooking dwarf?" Bert challenged.

Bill snarled at Bert. "Shut up, let the burglahobbit talk."

"Well," Bilbo hesitated, "Well, the secret to cooking dwarf is, I mean, the secret, to cooking a dwarf is –,"

"Go on," Bill was leaning down closer and closer to Bilbo. Bilbo looked like he was going to faint again.

"Is, ah... uh... you –you have to skin them first!"

I groaned and Dwalin roared and I heard Kili scream traitor at the top of his lungs as the rest of the dwarves struggled and cursed and cussed in Westron and in Dwarvish.

"This is takin' too long!" Bert growled. "I've eaten raw things before –boots and skins. A bit of raw dwarf would be fine," He dragged Bombur up by his legs and held him head first over his gaping maw. "I like the look of this one!"

Bill turned the spit again. Down under I went again.

"No! Not that one! He –he's infected.' Bilbo said. 'He's got worms in his tubes.' The troll dropped Bombur right on top of Kili and Oin. "In fact," his eyes lit up, "They're all infested with parasites. It's a terrible business. I wouldn't risk it I really wouldn't."

Bill slowed the turning as he contemplated Bilbo's words. No, no, nononono. I hung directly above the fire as he stopped. I started to drip with sweat.

"What? –We don't have parasites, you have parasites!" Kili shouted and all the other idiots joined in. I heard some scuffling and a thump and Kili went quiet for moment.

"I've got parasites as big as my arm!" Gloin cried.

Kili was louder. "Mine are the biggest parasites, even my parasites have parasites!"

"We're riddled!" little Ori bawled from where he was tied to the spit.

"Well, what would you have us do then, let them all go?" Tom asked, irritated to the extreme.

"Uhhhhh..." Bilbo began.

Bill roared back before Bilbo could say a word. "Did you really think you could fool us, burglahobbit?!" He reached towards Bilbo and the dwarves and everyone in the clearing began to shout and scream again.

"The dawn shall take you all!" The voice of Gandalf echoed through the forest.

"Who's that?" Tom whined. "Can we eat him?"

There was a sudden thundering crack, but I could not see a thing, since my face was still inches from the spiting flames. Then there was an odd sound of crackling, like ice or stone, and then silence.

We all cheered.

Dwalin relaxed with relief and I dropped a little closer to the fire.

"Get me out of the fire!" I yelped.

After a few more agonizing moments, Gandalf put out the fire with a bit of magic and I sagged with relief. As the spit was turned and everyone was untied one by one, they saw the position Dwalin and I were in and laughed for a good while before untying us.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter seven

After we all got back into our respective clothing, helped Bombur fit back into his and grabbed our things from our original camp, we inspected the stone trolls a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Ori sidled up to me as we got nearer. Bifur stuck a sharp edge of his axe up Bert's stony left nostril.

"They are perfectly safe now," Gandalf knocked his staff on Bill's face.

"Where did you go?" I came up to him, hands on my hips.

"To look ahead," he replied with equally impertinent manner.

Thorin paced over, his arms crossed. "What brought you back?"

"Looking behind," Gandalf waggled his bushy eyebrows at us mysteriously. "Nasty business, but I see you are all still in one piece,"

"No thanks to your burglar," Thorin snorted.

Gandalf gave him a reprimanding look. "He had the nerves to play for time, none of you thought of that."

Thorin deflated a little. I shook my head. He thought little of the hobbit.

Gandalf turned again to the three statues. "They must have come down from the Etenmoors."

"Since when do mountain trolls venture this far south?" Thorin sighed.

"Not for an age." Gandalf's face darkened. "Not since a darker power ruled these lands. They could not have moved by daylight,"

"There must be a cave nearby," something glinted suddenly in Thorin's eyes. He headed into the trees.

"Wait!" I ran after him. The rest of the dwarves blundered after us.

.

The smell hit us first. Well, it hit Bilbo first. He started making dry retching sounds.

"We must be close then," Bofur commented happily.

I wrinkled my nose and braced myself.

.

The cave entrance was wide and the cave was deep.

"What in Durin's name can make this kind of stench?" Fili coughed.

"It's a troll hoard," Gandalf led us in. "Be careful what you touch,"

Bilbo stayed outside with his nose plugged tight. I put a sleeve over my nose and went in. Dark and wet, the cave was filled with mostly troll refuse, rotting bits of meat and cloth and a few little piles of the coins and jewels and weapons plundered from the troll's victims. There was not much –perhaps just enough gold to fill a chest or two and a pile of rusty swords and rotting bows. There was even an iron gate with a couple of rotting hands stuck on them, as snacks I supposed. I swallowed dryly. Gandalf lit a torch with a bit of magic and handed it to Thorin who went off deeper into the cave with Gandalf and Dwalin.

Bofur eyed the gold. "It's a shame really, just leaving it lying around for anyone to take,"

Gloin nodded. "Nori, get a shovel,"

Nori gave him a secretive little smile and went out to find one and when he returned, they set to filling up a chest and burying it in the cave floor. Dwalin looked on with exasperation. I picked my way over towards Thorin, trying not to step on anything unpleasant unnecessarily. Rummaging through a collection of blades, one suddenly caught his eye.

"These blades were not made by any troll," he turned another in his hand and handed the first to Gandalf who had wandered over.

"Nor by any mortal man," Gandalf inspected it and I peered over Thorin's shoulder at the one in his hands. "They were forged in Gondolin, by the High Elves of the first age," Gandalf exclaimed as he unsheathed the sword reverently.

Thorin's lip curled at the mention of elves.

"I'll take it –," I began eagerly.

"Thorin, you could not wish for a finer blade!" Gandalf chided.

Thorin gave him an unfathomable look but unsheathed his blade. I could see that he was impressed. He kept it.

"Let us leave this foul place, come on, let's go –Dori, Gloin, Bofur," Thorin left.

I sighed and rooted around for another, but there were no more ancient elvish blades lying about. Picking up a few acceptable looking arrows, I made my way back outside. Gandalf was handing Bilbo a blade. Ancient Elvish again! It was a dagger really, but I wanted to squeak. I patted my elvish sword comfortingly. It was a young blade and had only seen my fights. I wondered what the balance of the ancient swords felt like when being wielded. The swords probably knew more about fighting and death than anyone alive in Middle Earth then.

"I –I've never used a sword in my life," I heard Bilbo stutter.

"And hopefully you'll never have to," Gandalf bent down. "Listen, true courage is knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one."

Bilbo's face was full of apprehension.

I smiled quietly to myself to headed off to the rest of the dwarves.

There was suddenly a sound of twigs snapping and a thumping of something hitting the forest floor.

"Gandalf!" Thorin called. "Someone is coming!"

My hand jumped to my blade.

"Stay together, arm yourselves!" Gandalf hurried towards us as the noise neared from out left.

_WHUMP!_ A brown blur flew out of the bushes and came screeching to a halt amidst our armed group of jumpy dwarves. It was a grimy old man who looked like had fallen asleep under a log and the forest had grown over and into him. His bulging eyes stared out at us under his huge floppy hat covered with twigs and leaves and moss. Patched and worn, his brown robes draped over his sled. Wait... were those rabbits pulling his sled? One of them stared back at me, intelligence written all over its face. It twitched its nose daintily and gave me a coy little look. I squinted. What?

"Radagast!" Gandalf exclaimed, "What are you _doing_ here?" Radagast the Brown! A mad old man and an earthy old wizard.

"Gandalf!" Radagast yelled back, "I was looking for you! I need to tell you something! Something –something is terribly wrong! Something is terribly wrong –something..." He stamped in frustration as we all looked on quizzically. "It was just on the tip of my tongue! I swear Gandalf, it was right at the tip of my tongue –," he stuck his tongue out. Bilbo jumped.

There was something spindly there.

"Oh, silly me! It wasn't a thought at all! It's a stick bug!" He pulled it off his tongue and put it on his hat.

Thorin shifted awkwardly beside me. We glanced at each other. I couldn't help but smile. His lips rose slightly at their corners and my heart stuttered for a moment.

.

Gandalf and Radagast wandered off a little ways away to speak of wizard matters. I itched to get closer and listen to their words.

"Don't mind them," Gloin muttered beside me as I craned my neck, trying to read the old men's lips.

"I want to know what is going on!" I insisted, but I flopped down in the leaves with a sigh.

Thorin paced by.

"Thorin let me see your sword,"

He stopped mid-step with a suddenly blank face.

"Thorin," Dwalin called from behind me, "Show it here,"

Thorin composed himself and turned to us. "Of course," and unsheathed it. The sun glinted off of the blade like quicksilver.

My hand hovered over the blade, but I couldn't bring myself to touch it. Thorin saw my face and took my right hand in his. My heart flew to my throat as my eyes widened. He placed the grip in my hand and let go. The blade swung down in my loose grip, but I recovered quickly and stopped it from touching the ground. I raised it slowly and swung it over my head and flourished it before me. The balance was beautiful.

"Have you seen the folding of this steel? The softer metals still can be seen from the surface –it is like looking into the depths of an ocean –so soft and so hard at the same time." I sliced it through the air.

Dwalin gave me an approving look. "You speak like dwarven smith."

"I had the best teacher," I smiled.

Dwalin raised his brow at me, and then at Thorin, who had the grace to nod, not particularly to anyone. He almost looked a little flustered, if he could ever look like that.

Grinning, I handed the sword reluctantly back to Thorin. Our fingers brushed again and almost dropping the sword before he had a grip on it, I swallowed audibly like a toad.

"I'm thirsty," I commented quickly and then kicked myself as Thorin watched me with a hint of confusion in his face.

A sudden howl saved me from my embarrassment.

"Are there wolves out there?" Bilbo wailed.

Bofur's eyes widened, "No, that is not a wolf, that's a–,"

All of snatched up our weapons. A rumbling growl came from behind us. A warg about thrice the size of me and rippling with muscle under its ragged, matted hide crouched at the top of a steep hill. It leapt in a blur and landed before Thorin with a snarl. Not wasting a moment, Thorin swung the elvish sword right into the warg's throat and it twitched before crashing down before him. I heard the sword cut into bone before the blade stuck in with a thud. Another thundering roar came from behind Thorin who was still trying to yank the sword from deep within the neck of the first warg.

"Tallis, Kili!" Balin cried as the second warg bounded down the slope towards Thorin's back.

My arrow sprouted from the warg's chest, as Kili's found its way to the warg's shoulder. It tumbled past Thorin still flailing to get on its feet before Dwalin pounded his hammer into its skull. Thorin finally got his sword out.

"Warg scouts!" he turned to us, eyes ablaze, "Which means an orc pack is not far behind!"

"Orc pack!?" Bilbo shouted; his eyes like saucers.

"Who did you tell about your quest other than your kin?!" Gandalf thundered.

"No one," Thorin rumbled.

"Who did you tell?"

"No one! I swear. What in Durin's name is going on?"

Gandalf exhaled with difficulty, "You are being hunted."

We all looked at one another, panicked.

Dwalin was already making his way up the hill, "We need to get out of here,"

Ori ran right into him from the direction of the troll camp, where our horses had been gathered, "We can't, we can't! The ponies bolted!"

"Even my horse?!" I screeched. Ori nodded. Oh Iluvatar!

Radagast suddenly spoke up, "I'll draw them off!"

Gandalf gripped his arm, "Those are Gundabad wargs. They will out run you,"

"These, are Rustabell rabbits," He shook his fist and squinted up at Gandalf, then off into the trees. "I'd like to see them try."

.

.

The next moment, I found myself hiding at the edges of the forest, ready with it sprint for the large rock formations on the plateau plains. I gulped as Radagast burst out of the trees with his rabbits and shot off with no less than fifteen wargs pounding behind him and six of them with orc riders.

"Go, go!" Gandalf shoved us forward and we all sprinted madly with the formation that Gandalf had told us to run towards. Thorin soon took the lead as we scurried from boulder to boulder, trying to stay out of sight of the orcs being led on a wild goose chase. We must have looked like a little trail of lice running and trying to hide on a big bald head. Utterly exposed, we were relying on the hope that the wargs and orcs would never take their eyes off of Radagast.

"Ori, no!" Thorin was able to stop in time and snatch Ori back behind a rock as he nearly charged ahead into plain view of the wargs. Once a dwarf got running, it was difficult for them to stop –they were like stones rolling down a hill.

We all dove behind a rock formation as the wargs drew close. As we held our breaths, a sound of clicking claws on rock rose up on the rock formation above us and the sound of a sword unsheathing. There was a warg and orc above us. Thorin nodded to me and Kili. I drew an arrow and knocked it as I danced back from the rock. The warg sniffed me out first but I missed and shot it in the chest rather than its eye. Kili's hit the orc in the chest also as the two huge monsters tumbled down. They both screeched and roared as I shot another arrow at the warg, hitting it in the eye and killing it instantly. The warg however, stood up with its sword raised as Bifur, Dwalin, and Thorin finished it off. But it was too late. The warg and the orc's echoing shrieks had brought the rest of the party thundering towards us.

"Run!" Gandalf cried.

We all obliged.

To this day, I still cannot understand how an old man, thirteen dwarves, a hobbit and I outran a pack of wargs for so long. But eventually, the wargs began to outflank us. We had a large rock at our back as the wargs circled us and came down from the ridge of a hill.

"We're surrounded!" Fili cried.

Kili shot and killed another orc. I hit another warg, but some of them moved back from our range. I let out a shout of frustration and raised my sword.

"Where is Gandalf?" Thorin turned sharply around.

Dwalin snarled, "He's abandoned us,"

No, he was wrong. Gandalf was near.

The wargs circled closer and standing beside me, Ori was an idiot and used his sling shot to shoot a little rock into the face of a rather evil looking warg. It shook its head like a dog and grinned, showing its rows of serrated teeth as the orc on its back raised sword. I pulled him back behind me by the scruff of his neck.

"Stay behind me," I told him.

The warg barred its teeth.

Suddenly, from behind us near the rock, Gandalf's voice sounded, "Over here you fools!"

I risked a glance back as I saw him disappear under the rock.

"Go!" I shoved Ori towards the rock.

Thorin leapt onto a rock beside what seemed to be the entrance to a tunnel.

"Get in! All of you!"

The dwarves all turned and sprinted. Thorin cut down a warg that leapt towards him. I knocked another arrow and sent another warg crashing onto its side. Kili shot an orc in the face.

"Kili! Tallis!" Thorin shouted as we turned our backs on the pack and charged through the grass for Thorin. I jumped past Thorin and landed on a steep incline and slide to the bottom. Kili landed on me and we rolled out of the way as Thorin slide down. We could hear the snarls nearing.

Horns, as clear as day, sounded across the plains. My ears pricked up. These were the horns of Imladris. Elves. I kept my mouth shut as I suddenly realized what we were in. Though I had never taken the secret tunnel route in and out of Rivendell, I knew of its existence. I had always travelled on horseback, so the elves had always led me out a different way. My eyes found Gandalf's and I nodded to him as we listened to the sounds of thundering hooves, the death squeals of orcs and wargs and the sound of whistling arrows. An orc tumbled in, loincloth and all. It lay on the ground unmoving. I gave it a kick. Thorin leaned down and pulled the arrow out of its neck. The silvery arrowhead gleamed.

"Elves," he spat.

"I cannot see where the pathway leads!" Dwalin's voice echoed from down the tunnel. "Should we follow it or no?"

"Follow it of course!" Bofur answered and rushed on after him.

"That would be wise, I think," Gandalf murmured as I passed. I gave him a smile.

.

.

.

*The next chapter will have a scene when she has a flashback that will clear up her height in comparison to Thorin's


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter eight

The tunnel was actually a seam in the nearly impenetrable rocky hills that surrounded the Hidden Valley. Pounding away in anticipation, my heart gave a little leap as a trickle of water began to flow from the rock walls and collect in little rivets in the rocky ground. We didn't speak at all, surprisingly. Trudging on, the stone pressed in on either side of us, but the little path finally began to widen a little and sunlight shone from the narrow seam of the sky. Bombur was most pleased at the change. A breeze began to ruffle my hair and the path widened still. Little waterfalls spouted from high above us and threw a gentle, soothing mist over our tired faces. I licked the moisture from my lips and turned to the limping hobbit beside me.

"Not far now," I whispered to him,

"You know where we are going?" his eyes were wide.

I just gave him a secretive smile and wove ahead. I turned the corner first. There were gasps from behind me. We stood at the edge of a cliff with the Hidden Valley spread before us in all its splendour. The dwarves forgot to spit or curse at the elves as they stood spellbound. Even Thorin had nothing to say.

"The Valley of Imladris," I breathed.

"In common tongue, it is known by another name," Gandalf supplied.

Bilbo came up last and stood beside me, his mouth open and his face almost glowing in awe. "Rivendell," he sighed.

"The last homely house that lies east of the sea," Gandalf smiled.

Thorin left the gawping dwarves and turned to Gandalf. "This was your plan all along –to seek refuge with the enemy,"

"Don't be a stubborn fool, Thorin," I brushed past him, "You should have already realized that you cannot blame nor hate others for their kin's wrongs. Elrond and his folk did nothing to you,"

Gandalf added, "There are no enemies here, Thorin Oakenshield. The only ill-will in this valley is that which you bring with you,"

Thorin continued, "Do you think the elves will give our quest their blessing? They will try to stop us,"

"Of course they will," I shrugged. "We don't have to tell them everything,"

"Your loyalty seems very mobile," he snapped.

"I chose what is right." I shot back.

Gandalf cut in, "We have no choice. We have questions that need to be answered,"

Thorin finally looked down in disgruntled submission.

Gandalf followed me down the path. "If we are to be successful, this will have to be handled with tact and respect and no small degree of charm. This is why you will leave the talking to me," he huffed.

I raised my brows at him. He resolutely marched on, ignoring my look.

.

We wound our way down the cliff until we reached paved paths that lead to a narrow bridge over the rushing waters of the Bruinen. The dwarves could walk in pairs, but the bridge was designed for riders to ride across single file. The twin statues of the elven warriors of legend rose up on either side of us, their long stone robes fluidly frozen in place as they stood at attention at the gates. Passing into a round courtyard, I glanced around with a sense of peace. I could not wait to eat elvish food and sleep in a feather bed and take a bath. Bilbo spun around slowly, a wistful look permeating his features. The dwarves paced awkwardly and uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Mithrandir," A lightly timbered voice came from the stone stairs leading up to the great hall.

Gandalf turned, "Lindir!"

The tall, willowy elf put a hand to his heart and nodded to the wizard as he came down the steps. His long dark brown hair slipped smoothly over his deep purple robe. He had a nearly indiscernible arrogance in his physicality, but I felt Thorin stiffen beside me.

"_We heard you had crossed into the valley,"_ Lindir spoke.

My elvish was a little rusty, but I still understood. Speaking it however, would probably take a little time for me. The dwarves were uneasy since they did not understand.

Gandalf replied in Westron. "I must speak with Lord Elrond,"

Thorin relaxed a little.

"My Lord Elrond," Lindir switched to Westron flawlessly, but with a hint of annoyance, "is not here,"

"Not here? Where is he?"

Lindir's lips were in a slight, mocking smile.

Horns sounded. The same horns we had heard on the plains. Gandalf gave Lindir a cheeky smile and we all turned to the bridge. There were nine riders thundering over the bridge, but they did not slow as they neared. I leapt back towards Lindir.

"Du Bekar! Close ranks!" Thorin unsheathed his sword. _To arms._

"Calm down!" I hurried over to him, trying to shout over the din of the dwarves drawing their weapons and getting into a bristly circle with Bilbo and Ori shoved in the center.

"Thorin –," I was cut off by the beats of hooves as the hunting party clattered about us.

The dwarves shoved me to the center of their circle. I stood there with my arms crossed, most of them barely coming up to my shoulders. The elves slowed down their horses.

"Gandalf!" Elrond smiled. Oh, that noble face. I had not seen it in, well, eight years I should think. Lindir looked like someone had stuck a lemon up is backside.

"Lord Elrond!" Gandalf exclaimed happily. "_My friend. Where have you been?"_

_ "We have been hunting a pack of orcs that came up from the south," _Elrond swept his cloak to one side and dismounted gracefully. _"We slew a number near the Hidden Pass," _He gave Gandalf a light embrace. He held up an unfortunate orc's sword. "Still, it is strange for orcs to come so close to our borders –something or someone has drawn them near,"

"Hmm..." Gandalf winced. "That may have been us"

Thorin gripped his axe and strode up to Elrond. Though the height difference was apparent, Thorin's presence of physicality was still a match for the elven lord.

"Welcome Thorin, son of Thrain,"

"I do not believe we have met,"

"You have your grandfather's bearing. I knew Thror when he ruled under the mountain,"

"Indeed, but he made no mention of you,"

Sweet Iluvatar. I wanted to pinch him.

"_Dear guests, I would have you dine with me in my hall," _Elrond replied in elvish, a slight glint of humour in his eyes but his face as serious as a man slighted.

The dwarves knew Thorin had made an unpleasant comment and they thought Elrond was voicing his disapproval.

"What is he saying?" Gloin shoved his way forward, "If he is offending us –," The dwarves started a clamour again.

"No, master Gloin," Gandalf cut them all off, "He is offering you food,"

The dwarves had the nerve to deliberate.

"Lord Elrond," I gave him a bow. His face lit in recognition. "I would not be adverse to supper at your table, if you will have me as a guest,"

He smiled warmly and gave me a nod.

The dwarves had also made up their mind. "Well in that case," Gloin shifted uncomfortably, "lead on."

Elrond gave them an amused glance and passed his sword to Lindir, who took it with reluctance. Lindir pursed his lips and handed it to an elvish groom who leading Elrond's horse away. He was still a vain singer who thought his art was Iluvatar's gift to the world. I grinned at him and he gave me sour look he had perfected over probably the last few thousand years.

I followed the grumbling dwarves up the stairs. Thorin turned at the top before entering the open corridor that led towards the main hall. His blue eyes found mine. I gave him a weak smile of reassurance. He blinked and disappeared from sight. I bit my lip.

A few elves had noticed the commotion and were whispering and watching on balconies and walkways above and below. Most faces I recognized and my nods were returned graciously.

"I did not know you had an affinity for the dwarvish race." Linder appeared on my left. "But again, you've never had a specific preference for bedfellows."

The twat had presumed that I tumbled from one bed to the next on my travels. "Still have not finished your lay about your secret muse?"

He inhaled sharply. "Inspiration takes time."

"Lack of it for a hundred years, I'd say."

"Who told you that?"

"I don't know. A friend maybe." I gave him a nudge, "A muse, perhaps,"

His face took on the look of a fish pulled out of water. Then his eyes widened as he looked to my right and he mumbled an excuse and fled.

"Tallis!"

I gave a yelp and threw my arms around Huredhiel. As I pulled back, we assessed one another for change. She looked no different.

"You need a bath and some clean clothes," she told me.

"Lindir knows?"

"That I am his muse?"

I nodded.

"Yes, I recited the opening line of his lay of Huredhiel when he was performing one day and asked me to sing something in my beautiful voice. Of course, I only had time to read the first line of the poetry that time I snuck into his rooms, but it was enough to make his ears turn pink and knock over his harp. He blamed it on bad fish."

"Has he given up?"

"I hardly think so, sometimes I get little lines of poetry from a secret admirer." She linked her arm through mine. "I'm taking you to the baths and I may still have some of your old gowns."

She pulled me off towards a corridor leading to the private quarters. I turned and looked up ahead to the shuffling dwarves. I felt bad leaving them, but they had Gandalf to settle them and my skin was itching for hot water already. "Thorin!" I called out. All the heads turned. "I am going to take a bath –so I will see you all at supper," I regretted my words. I had forgotten how to act around the elves. My voice and my words sounded very loud and unrefined.

He nodded. The other dwarves nodded. Ori gave a happy wave and Bilbo looked dazedly at me before Bofur herded him forward.

"Thorin?" Huredhiel looked over at me as we made our way to her rooms.

"What?" I replied defensively.

"I could hear that familiarity masking _a lot_ of painful tension. You have a lot of explaining to do."

"Shut up."

.

.

.

After a soaking, I washed up my travel-stained clothes and laid them out to dry. Huredhiel had laid out one of my old elven gowns for me. It was black velvet with deep red sleeves and golden embroidery at bodice and the hem. Soft leather slippers were left beside them. I slipped them on with a sigh. I spun around, relishing the feeling of air on my clean skin. I looked at the grimy black line left on the rim of the stone basin. Hopefully, the spring water would wash it away.

Grabbing my bag, I dragged it out into the hall. Where was Huredhiel? I needed to find the company.

"Tallis!" Huredhiel hurried up from behind.

"Where is the company?"

"In one of the lower guests' houses, I would assume. I'll walk you there,"

"You just really want to know how I ended up with thirteen dwarves and a hobbit, don't you?"

She didn't reply, but gave me a wide-eyed doe look of anticipation and grabbed my arm. I laughed and shoved her off of me.

"Well, after I left Rivendell –,"

"And me all on my own! Lady Arwen was sent off to Lorien and ada wouldn't let me go!"

I gave her a soothing pat on arm and continued, "I decided to start a courier business –an escorting of goods since I had so many connections everywhere. I started with just ferrying packages around the towns in Eriador, but soon, farmers wanted me to put together men and drivers to move wagons to Lindon. It was not too difficult and highway robbers were few and I seemed relatively alright at picking honest men for the armed escorts and the drivers. Paid well, I was never for want of much. I missed the excitement of learning to master new crafts, but I thought that perhaps I would even settle down in the north."

Huredhiel gasped, "Settle down, Tallis? That doesn't seem like you."

"I wasn't sure what I was thinking back then," I chuckled. "Anyway, fate seemed to have seen that fortune had too long graced me with her presence and decided that she was going to deal me some of her cards."

We left the shelter of the corridor and stepped out onto a long terrace that turned at the far end with a set of steps that lead to a lower terrace parallel to the one we were on. There were another three terraces spread below and finally leading into the largest one –the lower terrace gardens. The sun still shone, but night fell fast in valleys and already the light was unable to reach the lower gardens.

I went on, "I accidentally chose a driver who was actually in league with bandits and unfortunately, our train was ambushed on a stretch of rarely used road. The bandits killed a driver and knocked another out, but I told the three of the armed escorts to take the places of the two drivers and the third that had turned on us and to drive off as fast as they could for Lindon. The forth driver and his cart finally sped off after them as one of my men died defending him.

"I had three more men with me and now there were six bandits and two that lay dead, or out cold at any rate. So, we fought."

"You usually make the stories sound a little more exciting,"

"I know," I sighed. "I'm tired. I promise you I will tell you something a little more descriptive tomorrow. Well, I ended up with a gash in my side. Another armed escort had his throat cut, another had his leg broken and a chest wound and luckily one of them could still walk so I sent him off for help."

"The bandits?"

"All dead but the one who ran off."

"Did help come?"

"Oh, yes. I passed out from the blood loss not soon after the man went for help, but I woke up on a bed with stone all around and curious figures all around me."

"Ered Luin! You lucky –,"

"And Thorin, was there beside me with his hand on my wrist. Still groggy, I told him that his eyes were beautiful."

Huredhiel laughed.

"I thought I was dead –there was no harm in complimenting spirits of the dead or gods or whatever I thought the dwarves were. When my eyes and mind cleared, I realized that it was the dwarf I had sewn up three years ago when I strayed from the Autumn hunt! So I turned red when I realized that he was just feeling for a steady pulse and that everyone heard my comment about his eyes. He looked rightly bewildered and a little taken aback. He asked me if I remembered my name. And I nodded."

"How did you get there?"

"I supposed the dwarves were making their way back to Ered Luin after some smithing work in the villages and happened to take the road I was bleeding on. The man had not made it back with help yet and Thorin recognized me and told them to bring along. Apparently the man with the broken leg had died. I stayed until I healed and somehow persuaded Thorin to take me on in apprenticeship for the forging of swords."

.

I supposed that my hobbling around and helping while healing had endeared me to most of the dwarves living in Ered Luin. They didn't seem to mind so much that I was human after a while. In the beginning they were quite suspicious, the men especially, but the women took to mothering me or befriending me. I found that gossip was one thing that spanned every race when it came to women. And was I ever good at digging up gossip. Other than helping the women, I watched Thorin and the other dwarvish men at their work, helping with carrying water or handing them tools. I itched to try the smithing myself, but I was afraid to begin. The things I had made in Belfalas were utilitarian and base, and the dwarvish blades, gold, silver, tools, and armour were beautiful in a way I was frightened of attempting. At any rate, when I was fully healed, I had also worked up the courage to ask Thorin to teach me.

"I am healed," I had said after edging into his forge.

"Consider my debt to you repaid," he had replied, wiping his hands on his blacksmith's apron.

That was not a good start. "I saved your life,"

"I saved yours,"

"I –I saved yours a little more, don't you think?"

He was speechless.

"I mean the man I sent would have eventually come back for me, but if I hadn't found you, Dwalin, like an idiot, would have let you bleed to death or sewn infection into you –," I stopped uncertainly.

He was still silent, mouth still slightly parted in surprise.

"Please, just please let me stay and learn. I will do anything. I'll wash your underclothes." _Oh no_, _what_ in Arda was I saying?

"I –I can wash my own underclothes," he returned with difficulty.

"Of course," I squeaked, horrified, "–I just, please." I finished. "Sorry," and I bolted. I had never had that much difficulty speaking to anyone before. Dis, Thorin's sister had found me banging my head on the stone walls in my room.

"Did you ask him?" She put her hands on her hips.

"Yes," I mumbled.

"What did he say?"

"The only thing he said... said... was that –that he could wash his own underclothes!"

"What?!"

I told her what I had said. She laughed much longer than I had deemed necessary.

"Sit and stay. I'll go speak to him."

So I waited, my stomach churning.

She came back. "He wants to see you."

I hurried back to Thorin's forge. He had a look of puzzled amusement on his face, but it turned serious as he saw me.

"Here," he handed me a pair of tongs and a hammer. He also handed me a thin rod of plain iron.

I realized that it was a sort of test. Swallowing, I wracked my brain, trying to think of what to make. My hands were getting sweaty, but I still clamped the tongs on the iron and stuck it into the fire and watched it turn red then orange and then yellow. I brought it onto the anvil and struck it with an experimental tap. The second tap was harder. I let my hands take over –if I thought too hard, I was sure I would ruin it. I heated the iron thrice more and was able to shape it into a simple wall hook. It was a simple spiral design with a rounded tip and a flattened design of a flower bud where it would be attached to a wall. I stuck it into the bucket of water and handed it to Thorin who turned it over in his hands. I put down the tools and wiped my sweaty hands on my skirt.

"I could work with this," his face finally broke into a smile.

I returned it with gratitude. "Thank you,"

"We start to tomorrow," he fingered the little hook and put it on his workbench.

.

.

.

Huredhiel and I found the guest house. The dwarves' packs were everywhere and there where wet towels everywhere.

"They took baths!" I exclaimed happily. But none of the dwarves or their weapons were here. At supper already, I supposed.

"I want to hear more after supper," Huredhiel prompted.

I nodded, but hoped she would forget. I didn't want to finish the story of my stay in Ered Luin. Happy endings depended on where the story was stopped. I liked choosing when that was.

.

.

.

*oops -next scene you'll finally get height comparison for thorin and tallis -sorry about that


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter nine

Music drifted towards Huredhiel and me as we made our way to the Summer Hall. It had no roof and was a large circular terrace in reality. An elvish woman played her high harp and another played the wooden flute. Lilting and modal, the music cascaded down like water. The dwarves and Bilbo were seated at a long low table piled high with food while Elrond, Gandalf and Thorin sat around a round stone table. Lindir stood near the round table waiting on Elrond, his nursing his pride as he was not invited to eat with them.

"My ada will be expecting me for supper," Huredhiel embraced me tightly. "Come break your fast with me tomorrow morning –I will be waiting for more of your story!"

I laughed and she floated off down the corridor gracefully as I turned and stepped into the hall.

"Tallis!" Fili had a piece of bread half way to his mouth. "You look..."

"Like a woman now?" I finished for him. His mouth was still a little agape.

"Who was your elvish friend?" Kili asked; a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Huredhiel,"

"Do not even think about it," Fili laughed at his younger brother.

"What?" Kili shrugged, but he blushed a little.

"You both can come with me and break fast with her tomorrow morning," I offered.

Kili's impish smile stretched from ear to ear. Fili and I shoved him playfully and he batted us off abashedly. Both of them had damp hair still. They smelled much better than before. All of them did. Sitting down next to them, I reached for the bowl of salad and dumped a pile on my plate.

"Are going to eat that?" Fili poked at the greens on my plate.

"Yes,"

He looked at my plate, with an expression of surprise and disgust and took a bite out of his bread.

Ori examined a leaf of lettuce closely.

"Try it," Dori cajoled, "There's no harm in trying,"

"I don't like green food," Ori replied stoutly.

"Where's the meat?" Dwalin crossed his arms.

"The elves like to eat bread and greens first, and then the meat will come, I promise."

The dwarves looked at me skeptically and continued to eat the bread set out. Dori, Bilbo and I were the only ones who touched the salad.

"If you keep eatin' them, you'll turn into a rabbit," Gloin warned Dori.

Dori smacked him in the face with a leaf of lettuce. He turned back to his salad and sipped a little of his tea. Soon, thin slices of honey glazed ham were brought with finely scalloped potatoes in butter and cream. There were a few slices of apples, which had been marinated in what I guessed was cinnamon and sugar, arranged artfully around the plates. A large river trout seasoned with syrup of maples, garlic, and a dash of pepper was placed in front of us along with bowls of fresh water clams that had been cooked with basil and mushrooms. There was a dish of steamed green beans with what seemed to be venison sliced to thin, long slivers and a coney smelling of rosemary, thyme, garlic and slight whiff of wine. A duck that had been turning on a spit gleamed in the fading daylight. All around were piles of apricots, peaches, plums and cherries. I leapt for the plate of honey glazed ham first and got myself a few slices before the dwarves descended on the food like a mob of crows. I reached for the clams and nearly had my arm stabbed by Gloin's knife as he made for the coney. Kili had secured a large chunk of trout and Fili had pulled off the legs of the duck. Dwalin took eight pieces of ham while eating a plum. Bilbo happily set on the beans and venison, since that was one thing the dwarves did not touch. They finished everything very quickly, however, and were still hungry. Nori burped. The elves that came to take away the dishes grimaced at the speed the food was cleared. They brought little pastries and candied pears and apples for dessert.

Night had fallen. The torches flickered a little when a breeze swept past and Thorin, Gandalf, and Elrond soon left. I watched them disappear off down the hall. He hadn't even looked back. I supposed they were off to decipher the map, if Elrond knew anything more than we did, and if Thorin was going to willingly show Elrond the map. I made my way back to the guest house with the dwarves, who were disappointingly sober and grumbled loudly about it.

"Tallis," Bofur sidled up to me.

"What?" I asked, though I knew his request already.

"My darling lassie, can you _please –_,"

"Fine! Alright, alright!" I shook my head at him. "Fili, Kili, Bilbo –do you want to come?" I asked as I headed back down the corridor away from the direction of the guest house.

"Where?" Bilbo was a little suspicious.

"The kitchens."

They all sprinted towards me.

.

.

An elvish woman was in the kitchen tidying up as we stood at the door. Looking up from her washing, she wiped her hands on her apron. Her long brown hair was pulled back from her face and her graceful figure was very unlike the plump cooks they had everywhere else.

"And what can I do for you, Tallis? And Tallis' friends?"

"Hello Marilla," we embraced.

"Your company ate everything today, I am afraid your usual midnight snack will not be possible."

Bilbo deflated audibly.

"But," she turned back to her washing, a smile on her lips. "Perhaps a certain pantry has the latch still loose and unfixed from someone's adventures." She gave me a meaningful look.

I looked at her confused.

"A muse?" she hinted.

"Oh!" I laughed aloud and thanked her. We left, heading for a certain singer's abode. Huredhiel had told Marilla of her little escape into Lindir's rooms, then. I supposed her point of entry was his larder. We headed up the stairs.

"Shh!" Fili smacked Kili on the back of the head.

Kili had been bumped into Bilbo and sent the hobbit crashing into the wall. Bilbo picked himself up with a dirty look at Kili who tried apologizing in a whisper. I worked the latch of the window open and picked up my skirts and bunched them up around my thighs. Cursing under my breath, I stepped onto the rim of a pot that held little flowers and slipped clumsily through the window as my dress threatened to ride up to my waist. Finally through, I smoothed myself down and helped Bilbo get through the window.

"Stay out there!" I hissed at Kili who was trying to get in. I snatched up a wheel of cheese and whipped it through the window at him.

Bilbo and I pillaged sausages, three loaves of bread, a little barrel of salted pork, some dried fishes, and four wheels of cheese, a packet of cured beef, a few jars of preserved fruit, and I threw in a head of lettuce for good measure. These I passed out the window. Bilbo giggled nervously as he passed me the cheese.

I gave him a leg up and he went out the window.

There was a thump. "Ow!" It was Bilbo.

"Sorry," I heard Fili's voice. "My arms are full. I couldn't just drop the cheese!"

I stuck my head out.

"That's it?" Kili asked.

"Let's go," I ignored his comment and hopped out the window. I gathered up the string of sausages.

.

.

.

The dwarves raucously cheered as we returned with the food. There was a fire going in the middle of the courtyard outside the guesthouse. Squinting at them roasting the food we brought, I realized that I had no memory of a fire pit or brazier in the courtyard.

"How did you light the fire?" I asked Bofur who was throwing bits of the lettuce into the fire or at the other dwarves.

"With flint o' course," he winked at me and took a swig of wine from a mug.

Kili saw the wine. "Where did you get that?"

Bofur raised his mug. "Inside the guesthouse. We are well taken care of!"

Kili and Fili gave one another wicked grins and raced off. Turning back to the fire, I saw a piece of wood half burnt and lying half consumed in flame. It was chair leg. The dwarves must have broken a few chairs for their fire.

"There is a fireplace for fires, inside the guesthouse." I put my hands on my hips.

"Drink your wine," Gloin passed me a goblet. I took it grudgingly and left them to their eating.

The guesthouse did not have many walls. The ground floor was really just couches and a table and chairs arranged around the pillars holding the second floor up. It was completely open on the sides and behind some screens in the back were the springs for washing. Spiralling upwards, a staircase wound up two levels. There were a few wooden panels and screens arranged around the second and third floor, creating an open space but with the illusion of privacy. The breeze caressed my cheek gently as I made my way to the third floor.

I heard the sharpening of a blade. I paused and left my mug of wine on a wayward stool and picked my way over the pillows that had tumbled off the couches comfortably onto the impeccably clean floor. Not many dwarves had been up here, then. I stepped around a screen. Thorin was trimming his beard at a washstand. He stopped as he saw my reflection in the mirror.

"Did Elrond read the map?" I leaned against a pillar behind him.

He didn't turn, but met my eyes through the reflection of the mirror. "Yes. There were moon runes. There is a door that will show itself on Durin's day."

"Durin's day." I repeated.

"Yes,"

"That is not far away."

"Four months. We need to travel fast."

It was odd, talking to a reflection. He resumed trimming and I watched him quietly. Other than the dwarves who had not seen battle –Kili, Fili, and Ori –Thorin was the only one of the company who did not grow his beard and have it made elaborate to show his prowess in the field. I had asked him once why he did it. He had spoken of how as a mark of respect to the indignity suffered by his father and grandfather, who had their beards singed by Smaug. I spoke of it to Dis afterwards, and she smiled sadly. Perhaps he thought himself unworthy of the beard of a warrior. Perhaps he thought that with Erebor still lost to his people, he was still a failed king.

He splashed water onto his face from a lacquer basin. As he reached out for a towel and found none, I snatched one up from a pile a little ways away and handed it to him. He wiped his face dry.

"Thank you,"

I reached out to take it from him and our fingers brushed. Both of us ignored it deftly, but I could sense that he was unsettled as I was. Dropping the towel in the bin, I picked up my wine again and strode over to the railing and looked up at the clouds passing over the moon. A chill raced up my spine as I heard Thorin's heavy footsteps approaching from behind. He stopped, but I could not tell if he was paces away or right behind me. I dared not to turn, so I threw back the wine. I coughed. It was unwatered and heady and had such a rich base I gripped the balustrade for a moment.

"I suppose when we reach Erebor the Durin's Day festivities will be a little different than you had in Ered Luin."

"I do not know what awaits us at the mountain."

"We could get insanely drunk and just wait another year. We could celebrate our last Durin's day together. Oh Iluvatar. I am sorry. We will get that door open and the dragon is probably dead anyway. Then we can celebrate Durin's day inside and sleep in the jewels and gold."

He didn't reply.

My last Durin's day in Ered Luin was ... a little hard to forget. The dwarves brought out all of their barrels of wine and beer and food and just ate, drank, danced, sang, told stories and laughed until everyone was on the floor unable to breath. Dis had made a dwarvish dress for me and she had clucked at my less than ample breasts and boyish figure and fed me more bread. Not that that really mattered once everyone was intoxicated to the point when the entire night was usually a communal night of forgetfulness in the morning. Dori and Nori had their arms slung around one another as they staggered home and Ori had been taken home early and disappointedly, by his mother. Dwalin, Balin, and Oin were passed out under the tables and Gloin and Bombur had whisked their wives home to bed. I sort of had wanted to erase the image of Gloin and his wife kissing rather passionately and sloppily against a giant barrel of wine. Thorin and I had been dancing and he had steered us forcefully as far away from the two as possible, lest we had our eyes damaged any further. Bifur had still been drinking even as the fires were dying down. Bofur lay lazily against a fallen barrel and smoked his pipe happily. I had never seen Thorin drunk until then. His eyes were unguarded, and he was louder. Though drunk, I had been able to vigorously destroy the advances of an oily dwarf named Grutil who had tried to feel me up all evening. It had been a solidly tiring day and I stumbled back to my rooms trying to loosen my dress ties at the same time –thoroughly hot and uncomfortable. I had forgotten to shut the door.

"Made it home, then," Thorin stood in the doorway.

"I did!" I laughed. "Also, you may find Grutil lying by the fires still in the morning; since he will be nursing his two much bruised testicles that just chanced to collide with my knee."

He laughed –a rumbling sound. I turned away from him and squinted down at the ties at the front of my dress, picking at them unsuccessfully. Suddenly, a pair of hands slid gently around my waist, grazing the bottom of my ribs.

"Thorin?" I slurred.

I could feel his lips and his nose press into the back of my left shoulder where my dress had slipped down my shoulder. Moving slowly towards my spin, his lips and his beard left a tingling line across my damp skin. Arching my back, I gasped as his hands spread flat on my abdomen and one hand slipped a little higher and one a little lower. His arms pulled me against him and I pressed back almost desperately. He groaned into my back and my knees nearly buckled.

"Sorry." He pulled away with a whisper of regret. My skin had felt very empty then as I heard him stumble out.

I had spent the next day shuffling around slowly. No one worked at the forges. The sound and the fire and the mere thought of lifting a hammer were too painful. Thorin's eyes were guarded once more and we hadn't spoken of the night. I wasn't even sure it had really happened anymore. We slipped back into our roles as teacher and student and friends smoothly enough.

.

.

I had wanted him. Now I could feel his gaze on me as I downed the rest of the wine.

"I need you," I ground out in a whisper. I jumped as I realized I had said it out loud. Clamping my jaws shut, I hoped that Thorin hadn't heard. Cringing violently inside, I felt embarrassed enough to hop over the railing if it meant that I wouldn't have to explain the words I had accidentally let slip. I really needed to regulate my words.

"Is that the wine speaking?" Thorin's voice had a bit of an edge.

"Yes! I mean no! I haven't had much at all –just this –no! No that's not the wine speaking." Shit. "Yes, it is." I paused. "_I was talking to_ the wine. Good bye, I am going to go to bed." I fled.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter ten

"Be on your guard!" Thorin glanced back at the line of us curving along the mountain side path that wound its way out of the hidden valley and towards the plateaus. "We are about to step over the edge of the wild." He stopped and let us file past him. "Balin, you know these paths –lead on," He was going last –perhaps making sure that none of the elves would follow us.

We left his morning at the crack of dawn. Thorin shook us all awake and we packed in a hurry. Bilbo had sat dejectedly in a corner. He hadn't wanted to leave. My neither. However, Thorin was resolute and I led the dwarves carefully out of Imladris through the little short cuts and winding halls that were seldom used in the early mornings. Now, Bilbo and I trundled last in the company, our feet reluctantly dragging as we would gaze back at the Last Homely House glowing softly in the rising sun. Bilbo stopped to take in the last view of the white arches and pillars all balanced gracefully on the waterfalls.

"I suggest you keep up, Master Baggins," Thorin called to him.

Thorin waited until we passed him until he took his place behind us. I set my jaw. Now only a vast, vast wilderness lay before us before we reached the shores of Esgaroth, the long lake that lay near the foothills of Erebor.

.

Day by day, the paths climbed higher and higher. The grassy plateaus gave way to the barren rock faces mauled by ice, though because it was summer, misty waterfalls thundered in the place of frozen rivers. Soon, there were glaciers to be seen, though the mountain paths did not stray too near. The paths that lead to the mountain pass rose to incredible heights and odd rock formations rose that looked strangely of abandoned fortresses rose about us. The air grew thin and Bilbo and I had harder times breathing as compared to the hardy dwarves. Bilbo woke up short of breath and I found that any pace other than a steady walk would see me lagging behind. I kept up well, however, and Thorin had nothing to say. Sometimes, we would have to stop and wait for the hobbit. He would come up huffing and puffing and wheezing. I wanted to pick him up and carry him when I saw him grimacing, but I supposed it would have injured his pride.

Dark, jagged rock rose up around us as we wandered deep into the mountains. The paths were dangerous and unkempt and at times were so thin that we had to edge along sideways with are backs plastered to the rock face and a drop of thousands and thousands of feet at our toes. Everyone at one time or another had horrifying near-slips that induced pounding hearts and dizzying fear and scrambling. We would have to send two scouts ahead once in a while in order to find places wide enough to rest, lest we be caught in dangerous path when darkness fell with no place to stop. I wished desperately at times that I was shorter and stockier and closer to rock. I felt like I was too tall and swayed too easily. The weather since we had reached the highest paths was relatively kind, with a steady wind and flash drizzles at times.

When we finally found places to stop at night, we would all collapse carefully onto the ground, finally releasing our clenched muscles. There was little talking or singing. Any moment of distraction led to a slip and possibly a fall, so everyone kept quiet. It was exhausting. My mind felt battered with anxiety and concentration. Everyone was irritable.

Then the rain came. The skies darkened slowly over a day. The next day it was black. Rain lashed out mercilessly against us and the rock, making everything slippery and loose. We were soaked and shivering with our limbs dangerously stiff. Earlier on in the day, my right foot caught on a rock and I pitched forward. I threw myself against the rocks and tore the skin on my arms and face, but at least I was safely on the path. Shaking visibly, the stinging cuts gave me a constant reminder and kept me alert.

The wind soon began tearing at our clothes.

"Hold on!" Thorin's shadowy figure was at the front. "We need to find shelter!"

Bilbo suddenly slipped behind me and I heard the crumbling of loose rocks. I snatched at his shoulder and Bofur grabbed his arm. Bilbo wavered with his feet on the path but his upper body leaned out over the precipice swaying and trying to regain his balance. Giving him a tug, he smacked back against the wall panting.

There was a sudden, deep rumble. "Look out!" Dwalin cried. A huge thing was sailing through the air above us. Was that a –?

The boulder smashed above as and chunks of rubble tumbled down over us. A shard sliced past my forehead and I winced but dared not to move.

"This is no thunderstorm!" Balin called from ahead. "It is a thunder battle! Look!" He pointed across the deep valley fissure before us. A colossal shadowy figure was moving. I squinted desperately and slowly, I made out the rough outlines of a shoulder and an arm and a head and torso.

"Well blast me!" Bofur gasped, "The legends are true! Giants! Stone Giants!"

The giant picked up another boulder and whipped it high up into the air towards us again. A second rumbling shuddered around us.

"Behind us!" Fili shouted. And lo! There was another one coming around the corner we had rounded, its rugged features nearly indeterminable. The boulder smashed into its chest with a shattering boom and the broken pieces rained down on us and on the path, smashing away what little was already there beneath our feet. A groan echoed around us as the ground shook and swayed.

"Hold my hand!" It was Kili –he was reaching out to Fili. Fili! But Fili and the dwarves behind him were suddenly moving away from us!

An air-splitting roar came from above as the ground rose. I realized with a sickening shock that we were on a giant ourselves. I could not tell which bit we were currently scrambling about on, but soon it would become near impossible to stay on. The giant across from us spanned the chasm and headed towards ours and we felt the bone-jarring impact as they head butted one another. We were swung to the left, even further from the others and I heard Thorin shout a "Go, GO!" and suddenly we were all running towards his voice and leaping over to what seemed to be normal mountain and not the knee of some giant pretending to be a mountain. One of the giants had another boulder in his hands and he threw it, knocking off the head of the giant that still had dwarves on him clean off. The towering mass bent backwards as his knee moved towards the mountainside. The dwarves were going to be crushed. The giant's knee slammed the dwarves into the mountain and out of sight.

"No!" Thorin scrambled towards them ahead as the giant's knee fell back and the whole giant tumbled down and away. "Fili!"

As we careened around the corner, we were greeted with the side of Nori, Ori, Bombur, Fili, Bofur and Dwalin groaning and cursing.

"Where's the hobbit?" It was Bofur looking wildly around.

I swore and my stomach dropped. Fingers on the ledge. Bilbo was hanging on by the tips of his fingers over the cliff. Ori and Bofur threw themselves down on their stomachs trying to reach the hobbit. He slipped again but caught on to another bit of rock a bit further down with one of his hands. I nearly bit my tongue off. I threw myself down too and reached towards him, my arms were the longest. But he was just too far away he had no strength to lift his other arm towards my reaching one. I leaned over further and further until for a moment I nearly pitched forward, but someone grabbed my legs. Suddenly, Thorin swung down himself. And with one hand on the ledge, he hoisted the hobbit up towards me. I saw him ready to climb back up when his foot slipped.

"Thorin!" I screamed, but the hobbit was in my arms.

Dwalin grabbed Thorin's arm in time and he slowly pulled Thorin up. I sat panting as Bilbo collapsed on my legs. He whimpered and I almost felt like vomiting in relief. My limbs were numb and shaking.

"I thought we almost lost our burglar," Dwalin remarked.

Thorin turned and looked down at Bilbo. "He's been lost ever since he left home, he should never have come. He has no place amongst us." His voice was hard and unforgiving as the stone around us. He turned and walked into a crevasse in the rock face. "Dwalin," he called as he disappeared from sight.

I wrapped the hobbit gently in my arms for a moment. We sat there, shivering until the rest of the dwarves were inside the cave. He finally got up. We silently made our way into the cave.

.

There was no fire that night since Thorin was afraid we would attract unwanted attention, so we huddled on the sandy floor shivering and wet. Balin was fretting to me.

"We should wait for Gandalf."

"Isn't that the plan?"

"Thorin changed it."

I nearly burst in frustration.

"He told us that we were to leave at first light."

I shook my head, but there was nothing we could do.

Oin and I patched up everyone the best we could. It was mostly scrapes and bruises that would heal on their own, but there were larger cuts that needed to be cleaned.

"Stop moving," I dabbed at a cut on Fili's forehead.

"Just leave it," he hissed.

"You want your face to fall off?"

He stopped moving.

"Why are you here anyway?" He looked up at me as I started to clean a cut on his cheek.

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's so dangerous. Why did you come with us?"

I shrugged.

"It's not the treasure is it?"

"No."

He waited.

I finished up on the cut. "I owe your uncle a debt that can never be repaid." He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off. "You're done –next," I pulled Kili before me and started on his wounds.

"Ow!"

I was a little rough. "Sorry,"

.

The floor was cold and hard, but at least it was dry. I pulled my sleeping roll tighter around me and pressed my back into Bombur who has sleeping deeply beside me. He wouldn't mind. Well, he wouldn't wake anyway until someone shook him awake. I drifted slowly off to a fitful sleep. Whispering voices woke me.

"Where do you think you're going?" It was Bofur.

Bilbo's voice came out of the darkness reluctantly. "Back to Rivendell,"

"No, no –you can't turn back now! You're part of the company! You're one of us!"

The answer came without hesitation, "I'm not though, am I?"

Thorin's words must have really dug right into the hobbit's home sickness. I suddenly understood that Bilbo wanted Thorin's approval like the rest of us did. Thorin... he was one who inspired such feelings in others that one could not help but follow. His trust was hard to earn and it scarcely was given. He had given me his trust. He had given me everything, but I had turned it away. It was something I could never repay, no matter what I did. But I had to try.

Bilbo continued, "Thorin said I didn't belong here and he was right. I'm not a Took, I'm a Baggins. I don't know what I was thinking. Should have never run out my door."

There was a pair of blue eyes glinting in the darkness from the meagre light of the moon. I realized with a start that Thorin was awake and listening.

Bofur replied, "You're homesick! I understand!"

"But you don't! None of you understand! You're dwarves! You're used to –to _this!_ To living on the road, never settling in one place! Not _belonging_ anywhere!"

I saw Bofur stiffen. Oh no. Bilbo. Bofur, though not from the Lonely Mountain, had a home in Ered Luin. Bilbo thought these dwarves were wanderers. They were not. They left home for adventure or money or Thorin, but they did not wander. A dwarves' love for their home is like stony roots that never can be uprooted and they went on adventures because they knew that all paths led to home. All paths led to hearth. As for the other dwarves, they didn't live on the road because of choice. Their home was gone. These dwarves _did_ understand. Perhaps they understood more than Bilbo. They were homesick for a place that was no longer theirs. They were homesick for a place of belonging.

"I'm sorry." Bilbo cleared his throat, his voice regretful.

Bofur's words were painful to my heart, "No, you're right. We don't belong anywhere." It was silent for a moment.

I couldn't bear to look at the dimming of the blue eyes in the darkness.

"I wish you all the luck in the world," Bofur finally continued, "I really do," he gripped Bilbo's shoulder firmly and let him go. "Wait –," his voice rang out. "What's that?"

There was a soft glowing from Bilbo's side. I had originally thought that the light reflecting in Thorin's eyes were from the moon, but it seemed to have been from Bilbo. The hobbit reached to his belt and drew his sword. Soft blue light glimmered.

Neither Bilbo, Bofur, Thorin, nor I registered its meaning until the sound of moving sand reached our ears. There was a crack slowly opening on the cave floor and sand was falling into it. There was a deep groan of metal.

"Wake up!" Thorin was on his feet.

The next moment, I was flailing desperately for anything to stop me from falling as the mountain swallowed us whole.


	11. Chapter 11

In response to the reviews! -Yeah -It was a little uncreative wasn't it? Well, next chapter will be different. (I think) Also, I am mostly sure that orcs and goblins are actually the same thing! Some people think that orcs are physically bigger than goblins -which is a pretty valid point, but actually Tolkien just uses the terms interchangeably in the Hobbit, LOTR, and the Silmarillion. Also, Orcrist = Goblin Cleaver? That's just what I think though, and I am prone to reading too fast and missing or misinterpreting things from books! Thanks again for the reviews and the support! I will try my best to write to something engaging!

Chapter eleven

My fingers plucked my bow out of air right before it could have fallen away from me. The rushing air and the echoing yells of the dwarves filled the space around me as I struggled to find some sort of direction as things blurred in the instant I fell. A smooth wall slammed into my back, but it was on a steep angle and I slid right off into the air with a sickening speed and nearly broke my shoulder as I slammed into another rock wall further down below. I heard a snap –the bowstring of my bow had snapped in two. It seemed as if we were going down a huge smoothed pipe that funneled into the depths of the earth. Someone crushed the air out of my lungs as we flew towards another turn in the tunnel. Suddenly, I was freefalling and there was something below and WHAM I landed on a pile of dwarves. Someone landed on my foot accompanied with a bolt of pain up my leg and another landed square on my back. Nausea hit me as I struggled to breathe into my winded lungs. It seemed that we had had fallen into a platform that looked strangely like half a cage around us. Jagged wooden boards held together by rusted nails, misshapen fasteners, and half molten bolts curved around us like a bowl. There was a path of wooden planks that was held up by with rickety, rotting scaffolding and as I looked around in horror at the hundreds of orc-paths and twisted version of a mine that rose around me, sounds of the screeches and chattering of orcs began to echo around the expansive cavern. It was dim, but the yellow torches stuck at random on the wooden structures shed enough light to see by.

Cries of, "Get up! Get up!" filled the air there was something moving towards from the path. It was a massive horde of orcs racing and clamouring towards us. Struggling to get up, we clawed at one another and shoved one another off and onto the next person. Just as I got up, someone tried using me as a step ladder and I went down again into the massive tangle of dwarves. The orcs were nearing and we shouted louder, but nothing could be done as they descended on us, ugly, distorted arms and faces and legs everywhere, pushing and shoving and pulling and prodding and yanking and moving us by force of numbers down the path. Everyone shouted for one another as we were separated in the mass and swept away. I was as tall as most of the orcs, but I could barely see past the warty, blistered skin of the orcs around me –their leering faces and rotting teeth and stinking breath in my hair and their filthy hands scrabbling across my skin and clothes.

I tripped on a plank and went down. I panicked, struggling to stand as orcs trampled over me. Something hard glanced off my forehead and a dizzying pain nearly blinded me for a moment as I felt hands yank at my arms and pulled me along forcefully until I found my feet. My bow was still gripped in my hand, but it was useless now. There was a rumbling sound –like a crowd much bigger than the one escorting us and I looked around for a moment realising that it was a crowd –thousands of orcs were climbing and perching on their rickety wooden scaffolding jeering and howling. Flickering flames cast a sick glistening glow over all the orcs who were pounding their fists into their chests and the wood and one another.

My feet found much smoother plank flooring and suddenly the orcs parted and I found myself amidst the dwarves panting and wiping at the trickling blood above my temple. My sword was suddenly ripped from my scabbard and my bow pried from my hands. Thorin was to my left and Kili and Ori standing before my in the front. Gloin was to my right. A smell hit me in the face. I nearly doubled over. It was cloying like dead rotting meat, sour like stale unwashed bodies, and stinking of open sores that bled pus and blood. I swallowed dryly as the Goblin King in only a loincloth stepped on a pile of half dead orcs to get off his crude throne heavily, blasting us with another wave of his smell. His skin was covered in warts and boils and tumors and his sagging body hung in rolls of fat. A hanging, fatty goiter hung from his chin and his stringy grey hair hung in sparse ropes down his spotted scalp. His crown was made of bones and wood and he held a scepter topped with the skull of some fanged and horned beast.

"Who would be so bold to come armed into my kingdom?" His voice was gravelly and slightly nasally. "Spies?" His voice rose to nearly the point of breaking theatrically, "Thieves? Assassins?"

"Dwarves, Your Malevolence," an orc snarled.

"DWARVES?"

"We found them on the front porch."

"Well, don't just stand there! SEARCH THEM!" The orcs descended on us again. "Every crack, every crevasse!"

I stood their stiffly as hands reached down my jerkin and felt up my thighs. One of my dwarvish daggers was removed. The other was on the inside of my thighs which I squeezed resolutely together and so the stupid orcs didn't find it. One of them grabbed Oin's hearing trumpet and threw it to the ground. I started to bend down to snatch it up but the orc smashed his foot into it and it was crushed.

"What are you doing in these parts?!"

We were silent.

"Speak!"

We all glared at him in silence.

"Very well, if they will not talk, we will make them squawk!" He turned to his subjects. "Bring up the Mangler! Bring up the Bone-Breaker!" The orcs made a clamour that crashed about in the cavern. "Start with the youngest one!" He pointed a cracked and horny finger at Ori.

"WAIT!" Thorin roared beside me. He stepped forward. I wanted to pull him back.

"Well, _well, well_! Look who it _is_! Thorin, son of Thrain, son of _Thror_, _King, _Under the Mountain," The Goblin King made a fancy bow. "_Oh!_ But I am forgetting! You don't have a mountain! And you're not a king! Which makes you –nobody, really." He leaned closer to Thorin, "I know someone who would pay a pretty price for your head. Nothing attached –just a head. Perhaps, you know of whom I speak." He stepped back towards his throne. "An old enemy of yours: a pale orc, astride a white warg,"

"Azog the Defiler," I heard Thorin rumble softly, but with such menace. "He was destroyed."

The Goblin King gave him a reproachful look.

"He was slain in battle long ago!" there was shaking disbelief in Thorin's voice.

"So you think his defiling days are over, do you?" He turned to a teeny, misshapen orc scribe. "Send word to the pale orc that I have found his prize."

There was a roar of voices from down below that ripped up. A sound of marching reached our ears. Their torture machines were being brought up from the depths. The Goblin King sang and laughed and sang and cackled as the orcs cheered. We were in the process of being bound. I writhed and kicked as the dwarves around me did the same to shake off the hands and the ropes. Suddenly, there was a screech that rippled out from near the Goblin King. There was a clang and the Goblin King himself leapt backwards onto his throne with a squeal.

"I know that sword! It is the Goblin-Cleaver!"

The whips hit Thorin first before I, too, soon felt the bite of the leather fall on my body.

"The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks! Slash them! Bite them! Eat them! Kill them! KILL THEM ALL!"

And orc leapt at my head and I ducked. I spun wildly and saw that half a dozen orcs had felled Thorin and held him down flat on the ground.

"_Cut his head off!_"

An orc raised a jagged knife. I opened my mouth, but no scream came.

A blinding light blasted forth. I felt the orcs tumble away from me in the moments I was blinded. I fell backwards and it was silent.

Was I dead?

A voice, soft and strong, "Take up arms! Fight! _Fight!_"

It was Gandalf. I scrambled to my feet and leapt for the pile of weapons the orcs had amassed and snatched up my sword and bow. I threw Kili his bow and spun Fili both of his. To Gloin I threw his axe and to Thorin I slid Orcrist before I had to fight off three orcs that came at me with a desperate savagery.

"He wields the Foe-hammer! The Beater –as bright as day!" the Goblin King was on the ground somewhere ahead.

I slashed at an orc's head and it went rolling. Diving down, I rolled into two and sent them flying and as I righted, I stabbed another in the chest. I slammed my bow into a face, heard a squeal and grabbed a wayward arm and swung the unlucky owner into the circle of my blade.

"Ori!" I heard someone cry.

But Thorin leapt in between Ori who had been knocked over and the Goblin King's scepter. With a wild battle cry, he sliced at the arm of the Goblin King and found his mark. The Goblin King let go of a scream and fell backwards and off the platform, taking a whole bunch of orcs with him.

"Quick!" Gandalf was shouting again. I could see him now, since many of the orcs were on the ground rather than in my way. "Follow me!"

We all sprinted after him. I didn't see much after that. It was nearly blind running with orcs and blades popping up in my face and me and the company doing whatever it took to get them out of our way. Slashing and kicking and stabbing, we flew down and up the scaffolds, sometimes swinging over abysses with ropes and sometimes collapsing structures behind us. As we neared the cave walls, Gandalf struck an overhanging of rock with his staff and it broke off and we now had a boulder rolling before us, clearing the way until it tumbled off a corner and we were back to fighting. Thorin and Gandalf cleared the way pretty well and we dealt with the others clamouring from below or above and from the sides as we passed. There was a bridge the linked one side of the mountain cave to the other. Passing that bridge was unavoidable. As we thundered onto the wooden planks, the bridge exploded in the middle and the Goblin King burst up before us. The orcs behind us had caught up and more had amassed behind the Goblin King.

"You thought you could escape me?" The Goblin King swatted at Gandalf and the old man jumped back and had to be righted by Gloin and Bifur. "What are you going to do now, wizard?"

Gandalf leapt forward and shoved his staff right into the Goblin King's eye. The Goblin King dropped his scepter with a yelp and grabbed at his bleeding eye yowling. Gandalf sliced a cut into the Goblin King's gut. The king fell to his knees.

"That should do it," he groaned.

And Gandalf slit his throat and he fell heavily on his face. A sudden rumble came from around us. The bridge was cracking. The entire piece we were on detached and slipped downwards with sickening drop. We flew downwards, smashing into bits of scaffolding and rock and the world burred around us as we picked up speed. Luckily, the cave crevasse narrowed and our bit of bridge was able to be slowed a little be the rock walls before we landed on the bottom with a bone-jarring thump. I nearly bit clean through my lip. I lay on my back, sandwiched between planks under me and a dwarf above me. I blinked slowly. It was Thorin. His mouth was open and his nose nearly touching mine. We panted. I could feel his weight. I swallowed with relief that we were not all broken and dead and I relaxed and suddenly I was filled with this inane, idiotic urge to press my lips into his and rip off my clothing. His eyes darkened with something I hoped was desire. Heat flushed through me.

"Well, this could have been worse," it was Bofur.

Suddenly there was a crash and Thorin's face was painfully in my shoulder and boards and nails and things dug agonizingly into me. Something big and fat and probably the Goblin King made a late entrance and landed on our little pile.

Kili ground out a, "You've got to be joking!"

As we manoeuvred our way from under the debris Kili started shouting. "More orcs!"

We looked up. The cave walls were covered in a layer of them scrambling down towards us. We started pulling and yanking on one another with a renewed fervour.

"We can't fight them," Dwalin was helping Nori up, "There are too many!"

Gandalf turned to us, "There is only one thing left to do! _Run_!"

We fled after the wizard, tripping and stumbling in the dark, but still running nevertheless. Time lost meaning in the inky black darkness with only Gandalf's staff to shed a feeble light up ahead. I could not tell if we ran for an hour or two or just for a minute. The path began to slope up and up and up. I slipped on gravel and knocked people over and was knocked over multiple times. Finally the ground levelled suddenly and there seemed to be light ahead.

"Almost there!" Gandalf cried.

We charged forward in the last made dash as light streamed in from an opening that led to the outside world. Bursting into the open air, we still kept on running and running through the pines, down the slopes. Gandalf slowed as I heard him counting the number of our company aloud. We all began to slow and gather around him, panting and wheezing and coughing.

"Fili, Kili –that makes twelve, and Bombur -that's thirteen dwarves! And Tallis and –where's Bilbo?" He paused, searchingly, "Where is our hobbit!?"

We all glanced about wildly, but the hobbit was not there. A feeling of horror shot through me. We had to go back and get him. How did we lose him? I didn't remember seeing him during our escape, nor when we were with the Goblin King. But he was so small! But what if he was still there? I nearly burst into tears thinking about the poor hobbit either dead or alive and all alone somewhere and the thought of going back into the caves.

"Blast it!" Gloin exploded. "Curse the Halfling! Now he's lost and –I thought he was with Dori!"

"Don't blame me!" Dori cried.

Gandalf cut in, "When did you last see him?"

Nori spoke up, "I think I saw him slip away when we were first captured!"

Gandalf paced furiously, "Tell me, what happened exactly?"

"I'll tell you what happened." Thorin's voice was full of spite. "Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it! He's thought of nothing but his soft bed and warm hearth since he last stepped out of his hole. We will not be seeing _our hobbit_ again. He is _long_ gone."

We stood there, in silence.

"Nope, he's not!"

We all turned and there he was, scraped up but in one piece. Thorin looked almost ashamed.

"Bilbo Baggins," Gandalf chuckled. "I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life!"

Kili's grin threatened to split his face. "Bilbo! I've given you up!"

Fili shook his head in amazement. "How did you get past the goblins?"

Dwalin squinted at the hobbit, "How did you..." he murmured.

Bilbo laughed awkwardly.

"Why does it matter?" Gandalf laughed, "He's back!"

"It matters," Thorin continued, "I want to know, why did you come back?"

Bilbo turned to him. "I know you doubt me, I know you always have. And you're right, I often think of Bag End." He shrugged. "I miss my books, and my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong. That's home. And that's why I came back." He looked at the dwarves circled around him. "You don't have one. A home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can."

A shiver passed though the dwarves. I swallowed with difficulty. Whatever the hobbit had gone through to get to this side of the mountain, he had changed and it seemed now that he really understood what the dwarves were like. Thorin hesitantly bowed his head towards the little hobbit.

The wind carried something on it. It was a howl from behind us. None of us needed to say anything. We recognized the sound.

"Out of the frying pan," Thorin closed his eyes.

"And into the fire!" Gandalf finished. "Run! _Run!_"

My shaking legs nearly gave out under me as I took the first step, but my racing heart and the fear of the wargs and orcs behind me spurred me on. The last rays of the setting sun were disappearing. Darkness and growls sped towards us from the higher slopes of the mountain.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter twelve

We ran. Down and down the hill over rocks and between the gnarled pines. The thundering pounding of the wargs leaping behind us came closer and closer. Snarls filled the air. Something grey flashed at the edge of my vision before I ducked not a moment too soon and parried a set of snapping teeth away. I bounded right over me and spun around ready to block my path, but Bilbo almost ran into it. The hobbit backed up quickly, but the warg had lost interest in me and made a rush at the poor hobbit who drew his sword and held it before him and closed his eyes. I plucked an arrow from the quiver on my back, but suddenly remembered with horror that my bowstring was broken. In that moment, the warg leapt and it slammed itself right into Bilbo's sword and it fell dead with the little needle stuck between its eyes. I sighed in relief and sprinted on. Thorin and Dwalin slew another and Ori ran screaming from a warg and swung his pick axe backwards over his head wildly, surprisingly hitting the warg in the head and knocking it out cold. The trees were thinning up ahead. It was a cliff. I cried out in hopelessness.

"Up into the trees! All of you!" Gandalf called to us.

I automatically crouched down and Balin ran towards me and I hoisted him up by his foot up towards a branch. Once he was up, I gave a hand to Ori and Oin before I swung myself up onto a branch.

We were all up. Wait, no! The hobbit was still on the ground, looking wildly around.

"Up here, you idiot!" I screamed down at him.

He looked up with a start and leapt up, over shooting Gloin who had reached down to grab his hand. Instead of grabbing Gloin's outstretched hand, his fingers tangled in the dwarf's beard and he swung himself up much to Gloin's pain and mortification. A warg snapped at Bilbo's behind as his legs hooked onto another branch, but he and Gloin were soon safely up higher in the tree. The pack of wargs circled round and round the trees. Something strangely white was approaching. A pale orc upon a white warg.

He spoke something to us. I had never particularly mastered the language of orcs. It was a mix of Black Speech and perhaps some botched words from Westron and Khuzdul, so I picked out something along the lines of.

"_Do you smell it? Can you smell the fear? Your father reeked of it –Thorin, son of Thrain!"_

"It cannot be," Thorin's voice was ragged.

"_That one is mine –kill the rest!"_

And the wargs leapt at us. I snatched my foot higher as I felt something graze the bottom of my foot. Though the wargs could not climb, they could jump magnificent heights and they snapped off branches with their jaws and their weight shook the trees to the point where I had to wrap my legs around other branches and hook myself unto the tree.

_"Drink their blood!"_

Azog was neither original nor subtle. At that moment I heard a sound of cracking and the tree swayed dangerously and began to tip. The shallow roots on the pines that could not dig deep into the hard rock they grew on were no match for the weight of the wargs. We all swung towards the tree behind us. Branches slashed at my face as I grabbed onto what hopefully was the next tree. But we were tipping again and a mad scramble of a moment, I had to swing wildly for the next branch and clamour over the next before all but the tree at the very edge of the cliff was the last one standing with thirteen dwarves, a hobbit, Gandalf and I hanging on for our dear lives.

A flaming pinecone flew and rolled into the midst of the wargs. They skittered back with howls. I looked up. Gandalf dropped one down towards me and I caught it bouncing my hands.

"Fili –light one!" The pinecone was starting to crumble.

He lit on and blew on it with short puffs and took to lighting another as I threw mine down. It hit a warg square in the face. I bellowed in triumph as it barked and turned tail. Soon, there were pinecones of fire raining down and some wargs were on fire and the rest backed off. The fallen trees were burning and our tree was soon circled by a ring of fire. We cheered and hollered and shook our fists.

The tree tilted back.

We were falling. Our tree lurched over the abyss. I scrambled for a handhold. It jerked down until we were nearly horizontal to the ground and hanging over the drop off the mountain. Someone yelled and I felt a sudden weight on my leg that nearly ripped my boot off.

"Fili!"

I struggled to hang on to my branch as Fili gripped desperately at my leg with one hand as he swung freely over the expanse of night below him. I let go of a roar of pain as I tried hoisting myself up. Fili was too heavy. Everyone else hung off the branches like flapping laundry so no one was in a position to help anyone else. But someone had stood up. I looked up. It was Thorin. I opened my mouth to call him, but Fili suddenly was able to swing his other arm up onto my leg and I nearly slipped off my branch. I swallowed my cry with a cough as I finally steadied myself again. When I looked up, Thorin was not there anymore.

He was sprinting towards Azog.

Even from such distance, I could see the muscles coiled in the white warg. It leapt. It flew over Thorin and landed heavily.

Thorin fell.

I nearly bit through my tongue as Thorin got back on his feet but was thrown aside by Azog's mace. Thorin's head snapped back and he tumbled down on his back.

"Thorin!" a guttural cry tore from my throat.

The white warg closed its jaws around Thorin and bit down as it swung him like a ragged doll. I could hear the sounds of the dwarves struggling to climb up from the branches, but there were sudden cracks and snaps and the tree trembled. Thorin sliced the warg in the face and he was flung violently and landed on a stony ledge, unmoving.

"_Bring me the dwarf's head,_"

Tears ran down my face in desperation. "Fili!" I looked down at him. "I am going to swing you towards the branch over there."

"Are you mad?"

"Trust me!" and with a mighty swing, I kicked him off towards a branch further down to my left but closer to the cliff. My heart leapt to my throat as he flailed in the air, but he landed on the branch and the tree held still. Scrabbling frantically, I watched as the orc with the sword came closer and closer to Thorin. The orc placed its blade on Thorin's neck to mark his swing.

"NO!" I sprinted forward but he was still so far away.

A sudden blur shot into the side of the orc and knocked it right over. Someone rolled over on the orc and stabbed in the gut. It was the hobbit. It was Bilbo.

"_Kill him,_" Azog smiled.

But I screamed a war cry and pounced forward with some of the dwarves bursting from behind me. My blade dug deep into the neck of a black warg as I used it as lever to swing myself up onto the saddle in front of the astonished orc. He recovered and landed a blow that hit me full in the face. Spitting blood, I yanked at my sword, but it was still stuck in the dying warg's neck. The orc laughed and stabbed its sword towards me. Blocking his arm, the blade tickled my skin. I shook with effort to keep him from slitting my neck but I could feel the blade slowly cut into my skin. I suddenly let his arm go and threw myself back and his blade flashed before my face and I kicked him in the arm and sent the blade flying. Reaching up to his eyes, my fingers found their marks and I flung us off the warg and landed on top of him on the ground and stabbed his own blade deep into his chest. I put my foot on the warg's face and yanked my sword out.

I looked up wildly for Thorin; he still lay on the rock. But I could see a blue flash of light swinging about before him. It was Bilbo, still defending him from Azog. The hobbit was on the ground on his back and the orc and warg sauntered towards him slowly. A burning log lay in my way. I held my breath and leapt through. A buffet of wind knocked me over. I looked up. A huge shadow swept over a warg. It was an eagle. A giant Misty Mountain eagle scooped a warg in its claws and deposited it over the edge of the cliff. Another knocked over a flaming tree onto an orc rider. Another fanned the flames high into screaming wargs and another picked off three of them and sent them writhing and howling into the air.

They began lifting the company up, one by one and dropping them onto the backs of other eagles waiting in the air. I landed with a thump in the great soft expanse of an eagle.

"Thank you," I whispered, and buried my face into its feathers.

We all took off into the sky. Thorin was gently clutched in a pair of talons. I peered off into the darkness, but he was up head and I could not tell whether he was moving or breathing.

"Stop pinching," the eagle who carried me commented.

I released my knees and my fingers. "Sorry,"

.

.

.

The eagles took us high up into their home: the Eyrie. They deposited us on a wide shelf of rock and either flew off to their respective nests. They gave us our space.

Thorin's eyes were still closed. I knelt down beside him shakily. Gandalf nearly knocked me over as he rushed over and placed his hand over the dwarf's bloodied face.

There was a deep sigh from within Thorin and he opened his eyes slowly. I felt the weak brush of fingers on my hand. I clutched them and he winced.

"The Halfling," he whispered.

"It's alright –Bilbo is here," I smiled at him.

He started to get up.

"Don't –," I started.

He struggled anyway; Dwalin and I helped him up. He shook us off and nearly fell to his knees.

"You!" he was looking at Bilbo. "What were you doing? You nearly go yourself killed!"

I bit my lip. Didn't Thorin know that the hobbit had saved his life?

"Did I not say that you would be a burden?" Thorin continued. Bilbo's face fell and he looked so lost. "That you would not survive in the wild, that you had no place amongst us,"

The hobbit stood silently, trying to hide his hurt. Thorin limped towards him breathing heavily.

"Never have I been so wrong in my life," and he took the hobbit into his arms.

I cheered along with the dwarves and wiped happily at my eyes.

"I am sorry I doubted you," Thorin finally pulled back.

"No, I would have doubted me too," Bilbo shrugged. "I'm not a hero, or a warrior," he gave Gandalf a look, "or a burglar,"

We all chuckled.

And with that, Thorin collapsed.

.

.

.

Gandalf soon was in deep conversation with the Lord of the Eagles. Apparently, he had once saved the eagle from an arrow wound and the eagles were in his debt. Other eagles arrived with dry boughs for fuel and soon a great warm fire was going. Gandalf told the Lord of the Eagles stories of our travels and asked if they would take us east.

But the Lord of the Eagles would not take us near where men lived. "They would shoot at us with their great bows of yew, for they would think we were after their sheep. And at other times, they would be right! No! We are glad to cheat the goblins of their sport, and glad to repay our thanks to you, but we will not risk ourselves for dwarves in the southward plains."

Gandalf nodded. "Very well, take us where and as far as you will! We are deeply obliged to you. But in the meantime, we are famished with hunger."

"That can perhaps be mended," the Lord of Eagles said with a hint of a smile in his voice.

Bilbo sat down with a thump next to me as I worked with Oin to strip the unconscious Thorin down to his britches.

"Now I know what a piece of bacon feels like when it is suddenly picked out of the pan by a fork and put back on the shelf." He said.

"No you don't." I replied. "A piece of bacon knows it will get back in the pan sooner or later and hopefully, we won't!" I slipped Thorin's brigandine shirt off.

"Besides," Oin continued, "the eagles aren't forks!"

I hissed as I peeled back Thorin's bloody, deep blue shirt to reveal where the warg had bit into him. Inspecting the wounds closely, I sighed with relief as no bones were crushed and no lungs punctured. Dwarves were really the hardiest of all of the beings in Middle Earth.

"Here," I got Oin to help me pull the shirt over Thorin's head as gently as we could. "Go tend to the others –make sure their wounds are cleaned before the eagles come back with the food. There is no way you will be able to make them stay still after that." Oin protested but I was resolute, "Go –I can handle this on my own well enough."

He grunted but gathered the dwarves around and got them removing their armour. I turned back to Thorin. His eyelashes threw delicate, dancing shadows over the cuts on his face as the fire burned brightly near us. Shouting at someone to bring me some of the boiling water and the boiling wine, I washed my hands the best I could and thanked Iluvatar that Thorin was not awake and began to pour a little of the wine onto his chest. I stopped. He still did not move. I continued slowly and carefully until I was satisfied that his wounds would not fester. Digging into the pouch that hung from my belt, I produced needle and thread and some healing salve I had learned to make from the elves. The rest was less stressful since Thorin's reflexes and flinches were not there. Healing was a calming sort of work and I hummed softly as I wrapped bandages around his chest and his arms. I rolled him onto his bedroll. After washing the blood from my hands, I sat back on my haunches, so exhausted I could barely bring myself to head off into the relieve myself near the edge of the cliff.

The fragrant smell of roasting meat filled my head as I headed back towards the fire. Tired but hungry, the dwarves had been able to cook the sheep, the rabbits, and the hares the eagles had brought up. I tore into a whole hare and didn't stop until there were only bones left. I wiped the grease off my face slowly, my eyes drooping. There were still two hares left on the spit.

"Those are Thorin's," I smacked Bombur's hand. He burped sadly.

The fire was allowed to die down a little so the hares were not in danger of burning and I settled myself beside Thorin. Covering him with his coat, I rested my chin on my knees and gazed off into the fire.

.

.

Thorin's sudden groan woke me with a start. I rubbed my eyes blearily.

"Tallis," he gasp was hoarse as he tried to sit up, but grimaced and had to lie back down.

"Sh," I put a hand on his back and helped to sit up against the rock wall behind us. "I've sewed you up,"

His fingers brushed across the bandages spanning his chest experimentally. I passed him a bowl of water and rose to my feet with a painful stretch and stumbled over to the fire to get the hares. They were still warm. I handed the first one still speared by a spit to Thorin and he tore into it. Passing him the second one after he finished the first, he barely paused to take a breath. When he was done, he reached for the wineskin, but I batted it away and handed him more water. There was no need for him to bleed more or slow down his healing process with the stuff. He grunted, but I grunted resolutely back at him and he took to his water with a sigh.

"You are a messy eater," I picked up the spits and the bones and threw them into the fire.

"I think you'd know something about that having lived with us dwarves for so long. I am afraid that it has rubbed off you –half of what you ate is still on your face."

I laughed and his eyes sparkled back at me as he tried wiping at my nose, but only succeeded in leaving a greasy smear down my cheek.

"Thank you," I wrinkled my nose dryly.

"You care so much when you heal."

"If a healer doesn't care, there is little healing they can do,"

"They still love you for that," his voice was so deep and rugged, but so gentle. "You saved them,"

"Not all of them." It still hurt to remember. An epidemic had swept through Ered Luin and since I was human, the sickness had not affected me. Feverish, sweating, and coughing blood, the victims wasted away slowly until they were nothing more than bones. It was a month of nearly no sleep and nursing everyone around me. The ones who got better could help. But some did not get better.

"There was nothing more you could have done,"

"I know," I truly did. But it still danced cruelly over my mind sometimes. "Do they still hate me?"

"No –they had needed time to grieve and come to terms with the deaths of their children and their elderly. They thought they had driven you away,"

They few families who lost people had reacted with such grief I had never seen in anywhere else before. The dwarves lived and died and grieved hard. Their grief tore them like how earthquakes rend mountains. Thorin had risen from his bed whenever I knew someone was close to death and he always came to see the little ones or the old ones. A mother had come at me, her eyes so dark and so tormented and had drew her nails across my face and pulled her kitchen knife from her apron. Thorin had stepped between us, sweating with the effort of standing for so long since he was still sick. He had grabbed her wrist, made her drop the knife, pulled her into his arms, and stood there shaking until she had stopped wailing and beating him with her fists. I had to nearly carry Thorin back to his bed.

"I think they miss you,"

"The odd human woman," I snorted.

"_My_ odd human woman," he whispered seriously, but with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

"Am I yours now?" I raised my brows at him.

"I don't think you have ever been,"

How little he knew.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter thirteen

We stayed only one more day with the eagles –dwarves healed incredibly fast and Gandalf promised that our next few days of travel were unlikely to be harming to Thorin's wounds. The eagles were happy enough to take us down from the Eyrie very early in the morning when it was still mostly dark. As they flew down towards a river flowing from the mountains, the sun rose slowly in the east and began to burn the mist away.

"Look!" It was Kili. He was shouting wildly, "Look! The Lonely Mountain!"

There was a clamour as all the dwarves began to shout and cheer as a shadow of a single, lonely peak appeared in the east. Something swelled in me. I laughed aloud. I had not seen that place for years. I wondered what Esgaroth and Laketown were like now. Though the vast, dark expanse of Mirkwood still lay between us and our goal, it was fairly uplifting to now be able to see exactly where we needed to go. Soon, the eagles began to descend in great spirals towards a towering rock in the middle of the river. It was flat at the top and as we got nearer, I saw that stairs had been carved into the rock and led down to the waters' edge. My eagle landed lightly and I thanked him and tumbled off as he took off with a powerful leap that nearly knocked me over.

"Farewell!" the eagle cried, "wherever you fare, till your eyries receive you at journey's end!"

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks!" I called back.

Thorin had already landed and he stood at the edge of the cliff looking off into the distance at Erebor. I strode up to him and stood next to him.

"Erebor, the last of the mightiest dwarven kingdoms of Middle Earth,"

He glanced at me, his face filled with a sweet happiness and something so sad. "Our home," he whispered.

"Look, a raven!" Oin pointed at a little bird flapping past us. "The birds are returning to the mountain!"

"_That_, is a thrush," I corrected.

"Then we'll take it as a sign –a good omen," Thorin's voice was gravelly with emotion.

Bilbo smiled up at us. "You're right, I do believe the worst is behind us," he sighed happily.

We turned and made our way down the steps to begin the second part of our journey that lay underneath the eastern shadows of the Misty Mountains.

.

.

The stairs led down to the water where a ford of huge flat stones led to a grassy meadow with a copse of trees nearby. It was a wholesome place, with insects dabbing in the flowers and the sun glinting off of the surface of the river. We sat down on the long grass and discussed how we were to proceed. Gandalf all surprised us with a nasty shock when he mentioned that he was to leave us.

"I always meant to see you safely over the mountains," he reminded. "and now by good management and luck, I have done it. We are now a good deal further east than I intended to come with you and after all, this is not my adventure. I have other pressing matters to attend to."

The dwarves broke out in groans and were all most distressed. Bilbo nearly cried.

"I am not going to disappear on you right this moment," Gandalf was exasperated; "I can give you a day or two more. I will probably be able to help you find food, baggage and maybe even ponies if all goes well. You do not know where you are –I can remedy that –we are still some miles north of the path which we should have been following originally. There are very few people who live in these parts, though I do know of a certain somebody who lives not far away. In fact, he was the one who carved the steps you just came down and calls that great rock the Carrock. He does not come here often and not during daylight and if we waited for him at dark, it would be very dangerous. We must go and find him and if all goes well at the meeting, I shall soon be bidding you farewell!"

We begged and the dwarves offered him dragon-gold and jewels and silver, but he would not change his mind. "I should think I have already earned some of that dragon-gold!" he huffed.

There was nothing we could do and the day was still young so, we decided to bathe in the river where it was shallow and clear near the ford. The dwarves stripped down right away, with Bilbo looking awfully embarrassed. I picked up my bag and went further downstream.

"Oi!" Fili called to me, "Where are you going?"

"I really am not quite in the mood today to see thirteen dwarves and their axes swinging about,"

He gave me a cheeky grin. I shook my head at him and headed towards where the copse of trees drew close to the river. I peeled off my clothes slowly and realized that I had not cleaned my own wounds. Cursing, I slipped slowly into the water, wincing. It was cold and my cuts hurt like an orc blade up the ass, but I bit my lip and washed off all the blood and dirt I could and rose dripping and shivering. I darted into the trees, my feet cushioned by the soft grasses. It was warmer in the air and sunlight streamed down from between the leaves of oaks and elms. I had nothing to put on as my clothes dried from their washing, but no one was in the wood, so I lay down, feeling very exposed, but very clean on the gentle flowers and looked up into the bits of sky. Perhaps we would take back Erebor. A believing faith spread through me slowly. The sun warmed me and dried me.

"Tallis?"

"Thorin!"

"I am sorry!" He turned away –but his eyes had already taken my naked form in with a familiar heated glance.

I leapt towards my clothes, picked up my jerkin and held it up in front of my body, the clothes still too wet to put on.

"What do you want? Is something wrong?" I swallowed.

He only had his britches on and his hair was dripping and little rivets of water ran down his chest and droplets clung to his chest hair. His bandages were gone and I could see my stitching.

"Oh Iluvatar! Is it my stitching? Are your wounds alright? Let me see," I shuffled over towards him.

He laughed at my awkward movements. "No, no," he drew nearer, "Your healing is flawless –I wanted to ask if you still wanted the bandages."

"Oh. Yes –we will need them later."

He nodded. He frowned, "You have a –," he reached up to brush back my hair.

"No –," I flinched away. "It's nothing,"

"You didn't have Oin look at you when we were in the Eyrie did you?"

I gave him a sullen look.

His callused hands brushed past the sword wound on my neck. I shivered. I could feel the heat of his fingertips against my cool skin. He was close. I could see that the cut across the bridge of his nose had bled a little because of the contact with the water. His eyes were blue like the reflection of the sky on the flashing river. He smelled of dust and dirt and river and grass and a metallic and leather tang and smoke and something vaguely like pine. Suddenly aware that all that was between him and I was my leather jerkin that was only held to the front side of my body. I stepped away, trying not to breathe too heavily.

"I'll get dressed first," I laughed weakly.

He blinked and nodded haltingly. It took him a moment to break our eye contact and to turn and leave.

.

.

We set off after our clothes had dried. Oin had patched me up. Gandalf led us on a march through the tall green grass and between the oaks and elms.

"Why is it called the Carrock?" Bilbo asked Gandalf.

"It is called Carrock, because that is his word for it."

"Who calls it?"

"The Somebody I spoke of –a very great person. You all must be exceedingly polite when I introduce you. He gets annoyed very easily and he is appalling when angry, though when happy, he is a good enough fellow. Still I warn you he gets angry easily."

Dori huffed, "Couldn't you find someone more easy-tempered?"

Thorin wanted more explaining.

"No I could not!" Gandalf replied crossly. "I was in the middle of explaining. If you must know more, his name is Beorn and he is a skin-changer."

"As in a furrier who calls rabbits conies when he doesn't turn their skins into squirrels?" Bilbo was confused.

"Good gracious heavens, no, no, no, NO!" said Gandalf. "Don't be a fool Mr. Baggins if you can help it and don't mention the word furrier again as long you are within a hundred miles of his house! He can change his _own_ skin. Sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard and sometimes he is a huge black bear. He has a wooden home and keeps cattle and horses that work for him and talk to him. He does not eat them; neither does he hunt or eat wild animals. He keeps hives and hives of great fierce bees and lives mostly on cream and honey. Now, I am hungry and tired and we must move on!" With that, he shut his mouth and would not say anymore.

It was a pleasant hike despite everyone's stomachs grumbling loudly and bodies sore and stinging still. Thorin looked finally a little more at ease, though always diligently aware of our surroundings.

"How is Dis?" I asked him.

"She misses you –you made her laugh and feel young again." His face softened as he talked about his darling sister.

"She's hardly old."

"Not as young as she'd like," his eyes flashed with merriment.

"What about mum?" Fili sidled in between us.

A bit of exasperated annoyance flashed across Thorin's face, but it was a ruse to hide his deep affection for his nephews. Kili squeezed himself between Thorin and his brother, smiling impishly.

Thorin's voice was serious, but a timbre of almost playfulness ran under his words. "You both –we are all barreling through this quest and getting in all sorts of danger as adventures require."

Fili and Kili nodded happily. Thorin smiled at them fondly.

"Do not mention a word of the trolls or wargs or orcs to your mother when and if we return."

All three of their faces took on a sudden pallor.

I laughed. "Your mother is most certainly a force to be reckoned with –how did you both manage to get past her?"

Fili shrugged. "She agreed to let me come because, well, I _am_ the next of Durin's line. If anything should happen, I need to be here." He looked over at Kili. "She had no intention of letting him come. He followed me all the way until Hobbiton before he revealed himself."

Kili looked a little abashed. "Sorry," he made a face.

Thorin gave them both stern looks but he had known long ago that there was no stopping the two from following him. He had helped raise the two dwarves and the two tumbled after him everywhere and often into trouble. There was no separating them. Thorin sent them off to scout ahead. As they sprinted off, Thorin sighed heavily.

"I can't imagine you were too thrilled at finding them in Bilbo's house when you arrived,"

"They would have followed us anyway. The quest has been good for them so far. They have seen so little of the world and they must know more if they are to become warriors. But I cannot let them come with us into Mirkwood."

I was surprised. "You are going to send them back –alone?"

"Making their way back on their own is hardly more dangerous than going through Mirkwood."

"When are you going to tell them? They will not listen."

"I will have to find a way to make them understand. They cannot be lost. They are the last of Durin's line,"

"You should have married and had children to carry your bloodline," I reasoned, however cruelly it rang in my ears.

"Marriage," he scoffed at my usage of the word. "Dwarves marry for love or are married to their craft, there is no other way,"

That was why the dwarvish population grew so slowly. Women were the same. But royalty was different. Royalty came with obligations and responsibilities. Royalty was always different. "You can hardly say that all royal marriages were for love."

He didn't say anything.

"Hasn't Dis spoken to you about children?"

"There was a time when I perhaps would have wanted to raise my own, but that time has passed."

I had seen him with dwarvish children. They all loved him. They loved the quiet stability that came with him and his unending patience he reserved only for them. They loved the sound of his deep rumbling laugh and they loved his long, black hair and his stories. I could understand that he once did want his own children. But I didn't understand why he would not now.

.

We kept climbing up slowly as the day went on. I found myself in the back with Bilbo again.

"How are you feeling?" I asked him.

"Alright. But I would love to have a nice meal and a warm bed right now," he shrugged.

I laughed. We walked in a comfortable and exhausted silence for a while. "Thank you," I suddenly burst out.

"For –for what?" He glanced at me, a little confused.

"For... for saving Thorin."

"Oh! Oh, I hardly did. I just ran and threw myself about really." He blushed.

"You were brave."

"I was scared."

"Being scared is the when one can show that they are brave."

He smiled weakly. I took a breath and exhaled.

"Are you in –," Bilbo stuttered. I turned to him. "Do you – are you and Thorin –do you lo –?"

"Hobbit do not miss much do they," I laughed ruefully.

He nodded happily.

"I always have been." I replied finally.

"Been what? Oh, yes, right." Bilbo mumbled.

"I have not always known. And when I realized at some point, I lied to myself to keep myself safe."

"I don't think I've been in love," Bilbo said.

"Perhaps you will someday."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter fourteen

By mid-afternoon, we were seeing great patches of flowers springing up all around and the same kinds were growing together, as if they had been planted. I felt a little nervous around the gigantic bees that whipped about the flowers. I had been stung when I was very young, right in the forehead and that experience, though trivial now, always made me a little anxious around the little buggers. Bilbo watched them warily, and we both moved with a faked calmness in out movements.

"We are getting near," Gandalf said. "We are in his bee pastures,"

The bees and the flowers went on for while before we reached a belt of very old oak trees. Through them, we could see a high thorn hedge that rose intimidating before us, offering no way to climb over or bash through. On closer inspection, there was a wooden gate, high and wide, in the hedge.

"You all shall wait here as I go in first –when I call or whistle, come in two at a time and leave about five minutes before the next pair comes in. Bombur is the fattest and will do for two, so he might as well go last." He waved a hand at Bilbo. "Come on Mr. Baggins! There is a gate round this way."

Bilbo looked back at me panicked as he disappeared through the gate and into the hedge. Their footsteps receded. We waited in silence. I paced forwards and backwards as Thorin tapped a finger against his belt buckle.

"Suppose the bear-man ate Mr. Gandalf and Bilbo?" Ori gasped suddenly.

Dori shushed him. "Nonsense –you heard Mr. Gandalf –the man is nice enough when not annoyed."

"But what if he was annoyed? What if he had spilled his beer on himself right before they came in? What if Bilbo accidentally knocked something over?"

More dwarves joined in telling Ori to get a grip on himself and shut up. But Kili piped up.

"What if they need our help? What if they need us to fight the animals off?"

Fili gave his brother a shove, "Stop it,"

Everyone started arguing. I was tired and hungry. I sat down on a rock and let the dwarves go at one another. Thorin hadn't even bothered to stop them.

_Twwwweeeeet!_

A whistle came from within the hedge.

"Told you!" Dori snapped at Ori.

"Sorry,"

Thorin nodded to me and we headed off towards the wooden gate. It was heavy and creaking as we pushed through to enter the hedge. Another gate lay ahead leading out of the hedge and it swung open well enough. The space before us was lined by barns, stables, sheds, and a long, low, wooden house and all made of unshaped logs and thatched with hay. A giant bee whizzed before my face and I jumped back as it studied me with intelligent eyes and buzzed off. Snuffling, a horse trotted up to Thorin, sniffing him curiously before cantering off. We exchanged looks, a little uneasy.

The wooden house had long wings and sort of formed a courtyard before the door of the house. A half chopped log lay in the center of the courtyard and a giant axe was buried in a chunk of wood. The blade was nearly triple the size of my head. There was a huge sight-hound, lanky and sleek waiting for us at the side of the house. It came up to me with its tail sticking straight up as it sniffed cautiously at us before motioning its head towards the back of the house and ran a circle around us before bounding down a little garden path that curved around the building. We followed it cautiously. Passing a huge bench set against the side of the log house, I wondered how large our host would be.

We were greeted by the sight of Gandalf, Bilbo and a simply giant, hairy, bearded man with bare arms and legs of knotted muscle all sitting on a wooden bench on a veranda propped up by single tree trunks in the warm afternoon sun. They saw us as we approached them. Thorin bowed as we stood before them.

"Thorin Oakenshield, at your service,"

"I don't need your service, thank you," said the giant man. "But I expect you need mine. I am not overly fond of dwarves, but if you really are Thorin, son of Thrain, and if your companion is respectable, and that you are enemies of goblins and are not up to any mischief in my lands, I will be happy to listen to the rest of your tale."

It seemed that Gandalf was luring our unwitting host to take us in two dwarves at a time by telling a good story. I almost chuckled. I debated whether to bow or to nod. I stuck out my hand. A huge hand enclosed mine and we shook heartily. My arm felt a little weak afterwards, but the man was impressed. Thorin and Bilbo gave me odd looks, but Gandalf winked at me. Men in the north usually greeted on another with a hand shake and I supposed the skin-changer was surprised to find that I knew their custom.

"I am Tallismae the Wanderer,"

"Beorn the skinchanger," he turned back to Gandalf. "Go on telling then!"

Gandalf continued telling Beorn of our travels, and he would sneak in sly references as to increase the number of dwarves in the story and then stop the tale as the dwarves came in and Beorn would brush the dwarves aside with a quick introduction and want to continue on with the story. Bombur came in with Bifur and Bofur because he was angry at being last. But Beorn was roaring with laughter as Gandalf narrated how he killed the Goblin King, so Beorn was not too worried about the thirteen dwarves who had assembled in his garden.

By the time Gandalf finished, the sun was setting.

Beorn got up and with a stretch, he said, "A very good tale! The best I have heard for a very long time. If all beggars could tell such stories, they would find me all the kinder. You may be making it all up, of course, but you deserve supper all the same. Let's have something to eat! He rumbled.

"Yes please!" we all chorused, "Thank you very much!"

.

The hall was dark and smoky and there was a long trestle table down the center of the hall. The trestle table was low enough that even Bilbo could sit comfortably at it. I supposed it was usually where the animals joined Beorn for his meal. Beorn talked to his animals in a animal sort of language and they scattered to do his bidding. Dogs came in with torches and lit the fire pit at one end of the table and the left the torches flaming in the brackets on the walls. There was a sudden sound of sheep and we all looked about, confused until little white sheep led by a black ram came trotting in with things on their broad backs. One had a folded cloth embroidered on the side with images of little animals, and others had trays with bowls, platters, knives, and wooden spoons which the dogs laid upon the table to our amazement. Beorn sat had a big low chair and he had to stick his legs out straight far out under the table and ponies brought polished sections of logs for the rest of us to sit at.

Though Beorn served no meat at his table, his cakes, nuts, honey, fruit, and vegetables were well made and we were in no position to complain. We were all so hungry that the sounds of eating were the only sounds to be heard in the hall for some time.

"Women do not travel in these parts," Beorn finally commented.

I looked up from my food reluctantly. "No, they do not. I am a little different. I have no family or home to tie me down –I wander wherever I wish to go."

"Do you not wish to settle," He crunched on a nut.

"No,"

I felt Thorin looking at me. I had wanted to once, and perhaps I still did, –now I knew that –but I had stopped myself then, and there was little I could do now to turn back time and change my decision.

"Tell me of your travels," Beorn reached for his mug of mead.

I obliged.

After I had spoken for a while, he began tales of this side of the mountains: of the North and South and especially the dark, dangerous forest of Mirkwood. It dampened our appetites a little as we realized that the danger we would face could easily become worse than what we had already went through. Beorn was getting drowsy after dinner finished and only half-listened to the dwarves speaking of smith-craft. The fire in the middle of the hall was stoked with more logs and the dogs put out the torches and the ponies moved the trestle table aside and we all rolled our seats into a circle about the fire and watched the dancing flames, exhausted and silent. I began to nod off as the dwarves began to sing softly and I only caught the familiar last verse.

_It left the world and took its flight_

_Over the wide seas of the night._

_The moon set sail upon the gale,_

_And stars were fanned to leaping light._

Thorin had sang that in Ered Luin once while playing his harp. I had been completely surprised that the warrior and smith could handle such a delicate instrument with such detailed skill and gentleness. His hand had brushed over the strings and the droplets of pitches cascade in a melody that lifted his voice into a molten dark baritone.

There were beds laid out on a sort of raised platform between the pillars and the outer wall of the hall and I stumbled over to one and laid down on the blankets and straw, warm and full with the memory of song and a harp in my ears.

.

.

Morning came with sunshine. I stretched luxuriously and picked the straw out of my clothes and hair before stumbling off to the well outside for a wash. Sweetly steaming, breakfast was honey cakes and milk left on the veranda.

Both Beorn and Gandalf were nowhere to be seen. With nothing to do all day, we were reduced to fretting about them. I pushed away thoughts of either of them with work. There was little I could do but guess about their whereabouts. Checking the dwarves' wounds and stitching, I found that Oin had done solid healing and everyone was well patched up. I cleaned my knife with boiling water and set to pulling out the stitches. Thorin was last. He didn't even wince when I tugged the thread out. His eyes only watched me carefully. I didn't realize my heart beating faster than usual until he had left.

Finally, when we were having dinner, Gandalf reappeared.

"Where have you been?" Gloin stood up and nearly knocked over his plate. "And where is our host?"

"One question at a time –actually none until I have had dinner! I haven't had a bite since breakfast!" Gandalf sat down resolutely.

After consuming two loaves of bread slathered in butter, honey and clotted cream and washing it down with a quart of mead, he explained how he had followed bear tracks early in the morning and had discovered the remnants of a bear council that had taken place in the night. One set of footprints led away from the meeting towards the mountains and that he followed all the way to the Carrock, but the tracks disappeared into the river and Gandalf had to walk quite a ways downstream before he could find a place shallow enough for him to wade and swim to the other side. The tracks had seemed to lead back towards the place where we had been trapped by Azog. Beorn was making sure our story was true, then. The rest of the evening passed with eating and lazing around before we all went to bed.

.

.

Beorn woke us up the next morning. "So you are all still here!" he exclaimed and picked up Bilbo by one hand, "Not eating by wargs or goblins or wicked bears, I see," he laughed and poked Bilbo in the stomach much to Bilbo's embarrassment and said, "Little bunny is getting fat again on some bread and honey –here, let's have some more!"

So we had breakfast with the giant man as he told us that he saw the place where we had been attacked and was glad to know that our story was true. He also caught a scouting warg and goblin along his way and had told him that the goblins were still looking for the dwarves and were still enraged at the death of the Great Goblin. Beorn laughed then, he was wholly impressed that we had killed the Goblin King.

"What did you do with the warg and goblin?" Bilbo asked suddenly.

"Come and see!" Beorn was in a nice mood.

The goblin's head was nailed to the gate and the warg's was nailed to a tree just beyond. Bilbo gagged discreetly. Beorn proved a fierce enemy but a trustworthy friend. Gandalf decided to tell him about the true goal of the quest. Instead of trying to stop us, Beorn promised to provide ponies for each of us to take us to the forest and he would give us enough food to last for weeks if we were careful.

I found him later in the stables packing sacks and pots and jars onto sturdy little ponies.

"May I help?" I asked.

He looked at me skeptically and said nothing. I risked it and took his silence as a yes and approached a little shaggy brown pony. The pony watched me warily, but I bowed my head towards him in greeting and gave him a friendly pat on the neck, and he snuffled happily and let me gently but firmly tie the goods onto his back. I checked the pony for discomforts from its load and it gave me a nudge on the arm in affection.

Beorn looked at me approvingly. "You have a way with animals most people do not."

"I have an ability to communicate well with different people and fit into different ways of life."

"You respected the pony as your equal. Not as a servant, nor a silly pet."

I nodded.

"Here," he handed me a saddle.

I proceed to fit it onto another pony. I could see something light in his eyes. I loved that look. The look people gave me when they realized that I would learn anything they put before me and that I would learn to love what they loved to do.

"You stayed with different peoples and learned their ways." He paused. "I would not be adverse to you staying here," I could tell that this was one thing he had probably never asked or hadn't asked for a long time.

My face broke into a smile.

.

.

I walked out of the stables with a bounce in my step. Someone grabbed my arm suddenly and pulled me to the side of a storehouse. I backed into the wall of the building as Thorin stood before me, his hand still gripping me.

"What did you say?" he asked, his blue eyes boring into mine. He almost sounded jealous. I felt bad but I relished it for a moment before replying.

"How did you hear?"

"I was going to ask Beorn about the preparations, but I overheard you," he stopped before adding, "I'm sorry."

"I sure you overheard us unintentionally," I believed him –Thorin wouldn't lie about things like that.

"You can't leave the Company," there was a note of desperation in his voice.

I was silent as I could feel his hand tighten around my arm. It wasn't a hurtful hold, it was firm and warm and it was possessing and hopelessly desolate all the same. Tightening, I found it almost hard to breathe as I felt myself being drawn to his eyes, his lips. I could see him swallow as my lips parted in longing and his eyes darkened with yearning as he raked his eyes down and up back to my face. He didn't move as I leaned down, my lips so close to his as our breaths mingled softly. I closed my eyes.

"I said no," I whispered and pulled back, breathing heavily as I pulled myself from him and left. There was no way I was going to hurt him again. It took all my resolve not to look back.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter fifteen

Beorn had been disappointed that I had turned down his proposition, but he remained wholly civil.

"Maybe when I return," I told him.

"Maybe," he nodded.

The ponies for the dwarves and the horses for Gandalf and I were soon assembled in the courtyard. Carefully watching us handle them, Beorn gave us advice for the journey into the Mirkwood.

"Water you will find easily before you reach the forest, but after you enter, both food and water will be very difficult to find. The season for nuts is not yet upon the forest, though it maybe come and gone by the time you reach the other side, and they are nearly the only things that are safe to be eaten. In the dark, all things grow queer and savage. I have given you skins for water and there are also some bows and arrows, though I doubt you will find much water, nor anything wholesome to shoot at. There is one stream I know there and it is deep, strong, and black. You should neither drink nor bathe in it, for I have heard that it carries enchantment of deep sleep and forgetfulness. Even if you see something worth shooting at off the path, do not follow. That is one thing you _must not do_. Straying from the path means almost a certain death. This is all I have to tell you. I cannot help you anymore once you enter the forest. I send good wishes and food, but I ask you to send my ponies and horses back at the border of the forest. I wish you all speed and my house is open to you, if ever you come back this way."

We bid him farewell, with the dwarves bowing. Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin and I shook Beorn's hand in turn and thanked him warmly before mounting our steeds and filling out the tall hedges. Bilbo tried not to look at the orc and warg heads as we left Beorn's home. I glanced back a little wistfully. Perhaps I would be able to return one day and work alongside him with his animals and learn their ways. I spurred my horse forward.

We headed north. If we had made it through the mountain pass originally, we would have ended up much further south where a mountain stream met the great river Anduin. There was an old ford there that led to the old forest road. But Beorn had told us that that road was now used regularly by orcs and the eastern side was overgrown and led to impassable marshes. Besides, we would have gone out on the other side with a long and dangerous northward trek before reaching Erebor. The northern route was a little known pathway that lead nearly straight across to the Lonely Mountain. We were travelling closer towards the strongholds of the goblins, but they would not be expecting us and our side of the Anduin was under the protection of Beorn and goblins knew better than to stray into the paths of angry bears. However, Beorn still bade us to ride swiftly lest the goblins caught up with us.

We galloped along where it was flat with the mountains and river on our left and the ominous shadow of the trees on our right. It was hard not to feel better spirited despite the thought of wargs tracking us and the forest ahead. We had food and ponies and no one was dead or hurt. Night soon fell and the uneasiness settled over us as we dreamed of howling wargs and screaming goblins.

The next day was fair and shining again –hopefully the good weather would be with us for a long while still. It was high summer. Fili, Kili, Bilbo and Ori wandered over to me, cajoling stories out of me with their silly antics and jokes. They were all handsome young devils –I would be sad to see them go after the quest. The dwarvish and hobbit women had much to look forward to after they returned.

"Let's see your daggers," Fili leaned over from his pony and reached up and tried slipping a hand into my boot unsuccessfully.

I smacked his hand away and drew the knife from where it fit snuggly in its sheath that was strapped to my calf. I flipped it down to him and he caught it deftly.

"You made this?" he looked at it approvingly.

"My brigandine shirt too," I added.

Kili pulled up his pony on my other side. "You learned everything from Thorin?"

I nodded. "It took me ages to learn though –everything had come so easily to me before: weaving, healing, fighting, riding, blacksmithing, and hunting. But forging weapons of grace and fatality eluded me for quite some time. I ended up completing quite a few leather and scale shirts and other small parts of armour before I could even begin on the swords. I made a few daggers first. Most swords back where I am from are made piece by piece by ironmaster, bladesmith, hiltsmith, and the jeweler and engraver and put together. Thorin wanted me to be able to master whole process from the making of the steel to the setting of the jewels."

"Why don't you have the swords?" Bilbo suddenly asked.

I grunted, annoyed. "I left them behind in Ered Luin,"

"Why?"

Luckily Fili told him to shush.

I continued. "I couldn't get the folding and welding of the blade. Sometimes it would fall apart when I went to hammer at it again after a welding. Thorin made cut the metal to check the welds –they were usually pretty horrid. A few times it got to the point of having a hilt, but a blow against Thorin's swords would reduce it to shards. Nearly two years passed before I made any progress. He was a strict teacher, but in the end I began to get to the point where my swords would be strong enough to stay intact after a clash with another sword, but would still chip easily. Finally, I made this sword that was the strongest yet and I finished the elaborate engraving and setting jewels. It was beautiful, well, I thought so then. Thorin and I went outside to try it. Blades flashing, we went on for a while. I felt elated, free. Then Thorin caught me in a lock and tried flipping the sword from my grip. I hung on and his blade hit a weak spot on my sword and it shattered. I was pretty dejected."

Ori piped up. "I saw you –that was the first time I saw you so drunk you couldn't stand!"

I frowned at him.

"Did you try again?" Bilbo asked.

"I woke up with a hangover horrible enough to fell a troll, but I was angry and, well, really angry, so I set to making another one. This time, the sword was simple. No designs, a simple hilt and not one jewel. I pursued its creation with a singular concentration I had never experienced before. I engraved on word on the blade in the language of my people: _wander_. I still remember when I finished and plunged it steaming into the barrel of water. It stood the test this time."

.

I had pulled the blade from the water, the droplets raining down on my sweaty, sooty arms. I touched the blade tentatively and ran a finger down the word _wander_. Planting my feet firmly, I swung it through the air and spun to slash downwards. The blade had cut through the air.

_Clang._

A sword had stopped mine. It was Thorin. He gave me a nod of approval, but he swung his blade around mine and I leapt back, barely keeping my grip on the sword. I lunged forward and our blades crossed and slashed apart. My blade held. Giving Thorin a grin, I circled towards his left side and took a half step and a turn towards him and sliced. He parried it away and responded with hammering blows that rained down on my blade. It held. I rolled under his slash and came up to stab at him, but at the last moment, he knocked my sword away. A growl rumbled at the back of my throat as we met again in a flurry of movement. Barely thinking, I relied on my instincts to duck and slash and roll. I leapt over the workbench a few times and nearly ripped my skirt and had to steer clear of the still roaring forge and the anvil. I nearly backed him against the barrel, but he slid around it in time. For a moment, he left his right side open as he spun to towards me. I took my change and dived forward. Twisting around, he managed to divert the tip of my sword past his body. I had to roll as I hit the ground. As I came up, his sword flashed towards mine and we both slid our swords alongside the other and with a twist and a jerk and both of our swords went flying. Our eyes were locked. We panted.

Our lips melded. It wasn't a tender kiss. It felt like kissing a forge. My knees nearly buckled as his mouth opened. I had never felt so hollow for someone. I had never felt such need before. He tasted of metal and salt and intention. Thorin's hands slid down to my lower back and lower still, pulling me tight against him as I knotted my hands in his hair and ravaged his devouring mouth. He pushed at me, backing me up until I suddenly felt the low table dig into the back of my thighs. Soreness throbbed between my legs as he buried his face in my neck, his beard scratching against my skin while his hands tore at my dress ties at my bodice. My hands found the hem of his shirt and I tugged upwards as he flung it off. The bodice of my dress was open and the dress had slipped off my shoulders. I gasped and suddenly arched my back as his mouth trailed hungrily down to my chest. He looked up at me, an uncharacteristic smirk on his face. His mouth reclaimed mine. Squirming under him as I sat up onto the table, I fumbled at the laces of his trousers. He groaned into my lips.

"Stop," he gasped.

"No," I slid myself down his front. I ached for him.

"No," He pulled away.

"No?"

"No," He snatched his shirt off the floor and fled.

I had sat there shaking. I let go of a frustrated yell and slammed my fists into table. Angrily, I wrenched my dress back onto my shoulders yanked the dress ties close and got up and kicked the water barrel. It shook, but didn't fall over. I flopped down next to it, barely able to breathe with my dress ties digging into my chest. Calming down slowly, a sudden heartbreaking realization came to me. I had to leave.

.

.

On the fourth day, the land began to slope up and up and the deer and rabbits that had frequented the land we had passed through had all but disappeared. Birds chirped only occasionally in the silence, their calls echoing eerily. By afternoon, we had reached the eaves of Mirkwood and we decided to take a rest under the shade of some of the trees that grew at its edge. The trunks were gnarled and massive and their branches were twisted and tangled with long, dark leaves. Swaths of ivy and vines trailed off of their trunks and branches and onto the ground. Peering off into the gloom, I could not make out more than a few meters of more trees before everything vanished in a mess of undergrowth and darkness. Nothing stirred in there. It felt disconcerting to sit at the edge of such shadow and silence. I hated to turn my back on it when we ate. It felt like the forest would reach out and swallow me up if I didn't keep watching it.

"Well, here is Mirkwood!" Gandalf exclaimed. "The greatest of the Northern forests. I hope you like the look of it since it is time for you to send all the excellent ponies and horse you have borrowed."

We all grumbled.

"Can't we keep riding them?" Gloin grunted.

"You're all fools," Gandalf muttered. "Beorn is not as far off as you think and you better keep your promises anyway. Mr. Bilbo's sharp eyes have spied a great bear watching over our camp every night –not only to guard us, but also to look out for his ponies. He loves his animals as his children and if they were to step a hoof into Mirkwood, you would have made a new and rather horrible enemy."

Thorin crossed his arms. "What about your horse, then? You don't mention sending that back,"

"I don't because I am not sending it."

"What about _your_ promise then?"

"I will deal with that. I am not sending the horse back because I am riding it!"

Gandalf was leaving. Nothing we said would change his mind.

"Now, now," he wagged his head at us when the dwarves started offering gold again. "We have all gone through this before at the Carrock. I've got business in the south and I am already late because of you all. We may meet again before this is all over and I am sending Mr. Baggins with you! There is more to him than you know! Don't look so glum! Cheer up!"

We didn't.

Gandalf mounted his horse again.

"Wait," Thorin called. He hesitated. "Fili, Kili," He turned to the brothers. "You both are going with Gandalf."

"What?" Kili and Fili both looked rather confused, as did everyone else.

"What are we going with Gandalf for?" Fili asked.

"We don't have business in the south," Kili added.

"It's too dangerous from here on. You both need to make your way back to Ered Luin."

They both looked thunderstruck.

"We can't go home!" Kili wailed. "We're part of the Company!"

"You need us!" Fili cried.

"You are the last of the line of Durin. We _cannot risk your lives_!"

"We've done a fair bit of risking already!" Kili snapped back.

"The dangers ahead will surpass everything you've ever been through," Thorin looked very stony then, but I could see pain in his eyes as his nephews protested. "I need you to leave."

"We won't," Fili crossed his arms.

"You can't make us," Kili snarled.

"As you King," Thorin said very, very calmly, "I command you both to leave."

"No."

"Please,"

"Then stay. We will not move until you two leave. They we will never reach Erebor in time for Durin's Day and we shall never reclaim our home,"

The brothers were stricken. There was nothing they could do. No one else spoke a word as the brothers mounted their ponies angrily and galloped off, not turning back. Thorin sighed in relief and a little regret, it seemed. But I supposed they were safer not coming with us into Mirkwood. It did not make me feel any safer or happier that they were gone. I would miss their jokes and antics and their bravery. I would miss telling them stories. In the darkness ahead, I would miss them a lot.

Gandalf looked at Thorin, an odd look on his face. I could not decipher it. Before he turned to leave, he gave us some last advice.

"Straight through the forest is your path now. Do not stray off the path or you will certainly never find your way out. Then neither I, nor anyone else will see any of you again."

What a ray of sunshine. I shuddered at the thought of wandering aimlessly in a dark forest forever.

"With a tremendous slice of luck, you may see the other side and hopefully old Smaug will not be expecting you. Good bye!" He galloped off.

In the distance he turned once more and waved again and shouted a, "_Don't leave the path!_" before disappearing over a ridge.

Everyone was very quiet as we distributed the supplies as equally as we could and filled our water skins in a nearby stream. Bilbo nearly fell over when he shouldered his pack.

Thorin walked by and saw him struggling. "Don't worry," He said, "It will get lighter all too soon. Before long I expect we will be wishing all our packs were heavier."

We said goodbye to the ponies sadly and they all trotted off gaily off into the fields.

And with that, we turned towards the gaping entrance of the path and plunged into the forest.

.

.

.

*Don't worry Fili and Kili aren't out of the story!


	16. A call for help!

I need some help from everyone!

I know very little about the marriage and courtship traditions of the Dwarves. I know Tolkien does not write much about their customs because they are so secretive, but if anyone has any information, or even stuff that is not necessarily canon, (please specify when doing that) please, please, please comment and help me!

* next chapter coming in a day or two!


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter sixteen

The trees leaned in on one another and over the path. Overgrown and very narrow in parts, we had to walk single file down the path. As we left the little piece of blue of the gate far behind us as it grew darker and darker. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the sides of the path were still a darkened green glimmer, and none too clear. The leaves were high, high above and nothing grew down here but the dead man's beard that hung off of the old, dried branches and ivy that strangled everything else that could live. Sometimes, there would odd colours in the darkness. The colours were too lurid to be natural. Perhaps they were mushrooms and fungus that thrived in the moist, dank banks where trees rotted away. The path was not straight –it wound around the massive trunks like a deer path. Occasionally, there were still shafts of light that were able to cut through the canopy and illuminate a little path of the forest or the path.

As the first evening fell, we decided to camp literally on the road. No one wanted to venture off into the forest and as far as we could see, no one in their right of mind would be travelling on this road and run into us in the middle of the night anyway. Gloin lit a fire as it got darker and darker and we ate our food sparingly. Soon, the moths came. Huge black and grey moths that were as big as our hands. Furry and with dark red eyes, they flew at the fire and at our faces, one tangled in my hair and I shuddered as Bofur helped me pick it out. Some of them were burned by the flames and lay twitching and smoking around the fire. Then the bats came. Thorin made the decision all of us were praying for and we put out the fire. The embers died down as we threw sand over the flames. As the embers died, it became pitch black. I waved my hand in front of my face and realized that try as I might, I could see nothing. I waited for my eyes to adjust. They didn't. There really was no light; not even from the sky as it usually did. We huddled together as Thorin called out everyone's names, making sure no one had wandered off. It was nearly impossible to keep watch, since no one could see anything. However, Thorin insisted and the shifts were haphazardly passed to the person next to you when you started nodding off. I tugged on Bofur's sleeve when I felt like I had sat and watched for a while. He woke up easily. No one slept very deeply. We fell asleep uneasily as slowly, glowing eyes of red, yellow, and green began to blink into existence all around us.

The next day, we began to realize that the forest was not completely silent. Other than our footsteps, odd scuffling, snorting, calls, and whines would rise up occasionally. We could not see where any of them came from. The day wore on and soon we saw disconcerting webs. They were impossibly huge and thick and stretched from tree to tree, though never over the path. Whether it was magic or something else, we could not tell. When I squinted off at the threads, I tried not to look too closely at the thick bundles hanging or think about how big the spider had to be to have made the web. We tried lighting a fire again the second night, but the fire brought even more eyes and the moths and bats visited again. We put out the fire and spent another night in a big, unhappy pile.

By the third day, I was already growing tired of the stale, unmoving air. There was never a hint of breeze and the sky could not be seen from where we were. It was as if we were back in the tunnels of the goblins and, truly, I almost hated this more. We ran most of the way in the tunnels and the mountains were not as wide as Mirkwood. And Gandalf and Fili and Kili were gone. At night, though the dwarves were used to tunnels, they still grew to dislike the forest. The dwarves were famed for the lamps they made –it could be like daylight in their underground cities. The forest that watched us silently was not a particularly happy one. I did not think it cared for what happened to us here. No one talked much, no one sang, and what was spoken was in hushed tones and whispers.

The days passed. One night, I fell asleep with Ori and Bilbo snuggled tightly on either side of me. Someone poked me in the middle of the night.

I rubbed my eyes. "Is it my watch?"

Ori's voice whispered from my right, "I'm really sorry Tallis, but I have really got to... got to relive myself."

"Can't you hold it?"

"I'm bursting!"

Gods. We fumbled around until he was holding onto one end of his scarf while I held onto the other side. He stood up and walked off. The scarf went taunt. Hopefully, he was facing away from us. I heard him undo his britches and let his water fly.

"Done!" his voice came happily.

"Hurry up," I snapped.

The scarf suddenly went slack in my hand.

"Ori!"

"I just put it down –I can't get my pants up."

I waited for a bit.

"Wait –I've almost found the scarf... I can't find it! Blast it!"

"Stop moving and listen to my voice." He had better not have wandered off the path. "Can you hear what direction my voice is coming from?"

"I think so –,"

There was a muffled yelp and a thump.

"Ori!" I cried and got up. The rest of the dwarves were grumbling as they were woken up by our yelling.

"Tallis!"

Thank the gods! His voice sounded not very far off. "What happened?"

"I think I've fallen into a bit of a ravine –I don't think it's very deep, but it's very steep, almost like a cliff off the side of the road –I think I'll need a bit of help."

"Wait and don't move and keep talking," I called to him. I turned to the dwarves around me. "Ori's fallen in a ditch and he needs help. Who's got the rope?"

Dori started fretting.

"Shush!" Nori replied to his older brother. "Tallis, I've got the rope. Dori, Tallis will get him, don't you worry."

I scrabbled around over some disgruntled dwarf bodies before I found the rope. Tying one end to myself, I handed the other end to some grasping hands and moved off into the direction of Ori's rambling voice.

"Wait!" It was Thorin. "You can't go alone,"

"I'm the tallest and I'm already tied to the rope –we don't want to lose any more people do we?"

"Call if you need help," he replied.

I nodded before realizing that he could not see me. "I will."

I crouched down and shuffled forwards, hoping I wouldn't be wandering into whatever bodies those blinking eyes belong too. I tripped over a root and landed on my hands and knees.

"You alright?" It was Bofur's voice.

"Yes, I just tripped over a root –I'm off the path now,"

Ori's voice was getting nearer. My hand suddenly hit nothing but air as I put it down. Ori's voice was coming from right below me.

"Ori! I'm going to reach down and see if I can reach you!"

"You sound like you are right above me," Ori replied.

I stretched my arm as far as it would go.

"I don't think I can reach you!" Ori gasped –he sounded like he was on his tiptoes, straining upwards.

"I'm coming down," I turned and put a foot over. I scraped it around until I found something like a rock to put my foot against. I swung the other one down. I found something like a root. Reasoning my way down, my foot touched the ground soon enough.

"Ori?"

"Tallis!"

I felt someone walk right into me.

"I'm going to lift you up and you can climb onto my shoulders and up onto the edge." I told him.

Kneeling down, we fumbled around blindly until his boot was on my knee and his hands on a root above us. I pushed him up and he was able to kick around and bruise me in the process until he finally got his heavy, hard boots on my shoulders.

"Can you reach the top?" my voice was tight from the strain of holding him up.

"I think so." His weight lifted for a moment as he tested the ledge.

"I am going to give you a push, you ready?"

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. Something wasn't right.

"What's wrong?" Ori asked.

"Shhh..."

We were silent. There was something that almost sounded like breathing. I could feel tenseness in the air.

"One, two, three!" I shouted and vaulted Ori up not a moment before I heard something leap up behind me. I blindly dove to the left and heard something hit the place where I had been standing a moment before. Something snarled right beside me and I felt a hot, moist breath before I kicked out wildly and made contact with something very solid.

"Pull me up!" I yelled. I could hear the dwarves' cries of confused panic. I scrambled up, slipping and scrabbling. A maw of teeth snapped below me and I flailed my feet, kicking the thing in the face. It let go of an angry yelp that deepened into a throaty growl. It was going to lunge again; I could feel its muscles coiling and ready to spring. I got my arms onto the edge and as I lifted myself up, pain ripped through my calf. I screamed. I slipped back with the weight of the thing on my leg, but the rope held fast. It felt like my foot was going to get torn off.

"It's got my leg!"

There was a sudden zip of what sounded like arrows. Something passed dangerously close to my face, but there was a sound of arrow piercing flesh and the thing below let go of my foot with a howl and I was pulled up and over with a heave.

"Tallis, are you alright?"

"Can you move?"

"_Fili? Kili?_"

I felt three pairs of hands grab me. Fili and Kili under each arm and Ori leading us along with the rope, we made it back to the group. I collapsed down on the hard ground.

"Fili, Kili –how in the world?" I threw out blindly.

"We followed you," Kili's voice was right beside me. "At a distance of course."

"Gandalf let us go when we ran off." Fili added. "We heard you all yelling a while ago so we just followed the path towards you and luckily we ended up where you all were."

"_You have been traveling on your own for a fortnight in the forest?"_ Thorin's angry voice came from across our huddle.

"Uh oh," Kili shrunk down.

"I will deal with you both when it is day_._" Thorin sounded like he was shaking. "From now on, no one pisses in the middle of the night! _Is that understood?"_ He took our silence as our agreement. "Tallis! Are you alright?"

"My leg doesn't feel too bad." I grimaced.

"You're lying,"

"Yes, yes I am –it feels like it's been dipped in boiling pitch. I can still move my toes, so nothing has been severed, but I can't be sure about anything until I can see it in the daylight."

Slowly, everyone settled down again. I reclined in an awkward position since it seemed the only position I could bear. I could barely move my leg without crying out, so I leaned back on my elbows and kept my leg bent and calf off the ground. Feeling the bleeding of the wound, I clenched my jaw and tried not to whimper. With my full attention taken by my wound, I nearly missed the sounds of someone moving around the group. Suddenly, two strong arms pulled me against their owner's chest, causing me to stiffen.

"Thorin?" I whispered.

"Shh..." he settled me against him.

I couldn't help but smile to myself softly in the darkness as I cautiously let my head fall against his warm and broad chest. His arms never loosened and held me safely. A sudden stab of pain from my leg caused me to jerk and let slip an agonized moan. Tightening an arm around me, Thorin let go with the other and let his hand fall to the exposed skin behind my ear and let the back of his fingers run down to my shoulder soothingly over and over again. I calmed to his touch and suddenly something in my chest released and I was swallowing back tears of pain and of emptiness. My lashes were wet, but I kept from shaking or making a sound. Taking a few ragged breaths, I let the soreness in my throat subside as Thorin continued to stroke me softly.

If I ignored the snores of the other dwarves, it could have just been him and me, alone in the dark. He was mine then, completely and utterly mine. But again, I smiled ruefully, he was never mine. He had told me once that he had thought he had been in love when he was younger. A beautiful dwarven princess from the northern mountains had visited Erebor and smitten, he had foolishly dove right into the rituals of courtship, golden bracelets and wearing her bead in his braid. His father had been more than supportive of the match, since royalty were expected to marry, whether they were in love or no. The lofty princess had accepted the gifts an unsurprised manner and complied willingly enough –he was a prince and she was a princess, what else were they to do? But the dragon had come and he had little time for marriage and courtship after that. Realizing later on that his feeling for her been perhaps a little less strong than he had thought, he was hardly devastated when she went back to her people. He had to lead his people and he was a now a prince without a kingdom. Learning to hide his vulnerabilities, he hardened over time. His father and grandfather with dragonsickness ever lingering in them left their people without care. Thorin had to fill the void as his father and grandfather grew evermore distant. He needed a strong, dwarvish queen to give him heirs and to restore their people to their former glory. I could never be his queen. I was a mere girl who wandered aimlessly through the world.

But perhaps, in the dark, I could pretend for a while that we were shaped to be together.

I slowly relaxed, but sleep did not truly come. I dozed fitfully and in the morning when we all woke, I looked up and saw Thorin wincing and realized that I had been digging my fingers into his arm the entire night.

"Sorry," I swallowed.

His face softened into a rare gentle smile and he helped me sit up. I groaned as a stab of pain shot through my leg. It had dulled to a low throbbing in the night. As I reluctantly turned to look at my leg I immediately regretted it seeing the bloody mess below my knee. Whatever had bitten me had gotten its jaws around my calf and though my boot was in the way, the teeth had still gotten through. Unlacing my boots, pulling my woolen socks off, and rolling my pant leg up with agonizing slowness, I slowly revealed the wound. Oin boiled a little of our precious water and he washed the wound as I gripped Thorin's arm so hard he grimaced at me. There was a perfect circle of punctures on my calf left from what seemed to have been a wolf.

I pulled out my little wineskin, handed it to Oin and put my glove into my mouth.

"Thorin, please –," I took the glove out of my mouth to ask him, but he nodded already –he had been with enough healers on the battlefield to know what was to happen next.

I moved slowly onto my hands and knees and replaced the glove in my mouth. Feeling Thorin's hands press down on my knee and ankle, I steeled myself.

I bit down hard enough to have bitten my tongue clean through if my glove was not there when the wine touched my leg. My vision clouded at the edges. When it was over, I collapsed forward on my elbows as my head swam and I blinked away the stars. As I spat out the glove, panting, the weight lifted off my leg and instead, Thorin moved before me and placed a hand on my shoulder. The warmth steadied me as I lifted my head to find his face searching mine urgently for indication of relief from the pain. Pressing my lips together, I give him a weak smile and he sighed in relief. Concern for me wiped the hardness from his features momentarily. Nearly reaching a reassuring hand up to his face, I reigned myself in. There was no need to lose control. He sensed my hesitation but placed his other hand on my other shoulder comfortingly as Oin dressed my wound and wrapped it up. Turning over and sitting down, I wiped off the blood from my boot and sock the best I could and put them back on.

Thorin and Dwalin helped me up as gently as they could and Gloin had fashioned a crude sort of crutch for me I could use until I could bear putting weight on my foot. Testing it, it held and my foot throbbed away, but no longer stabbed with pain. I was worried about how it would heal, but I pushed the thought away for the moment as I shouldered my pack very slowly and adjusted myself to walk down the path.

Thorin went on angrily at Kili and Fili for a long while. Finally, he told them he would not send them back, not because he approved of them coming, but because we could hardly travel back and make it across the forest in time.

The day wore on. The trees watched me contemptuously. We were unwelcome guests and they had exacted their displeasure upon me.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter seventeen

Lowering myself slowly onto a curling root that managed to wander near the path, I caught my breath and heavily wiped the sweat from my face. There was a mushroom the size of my face growing on a rotting log just a few feet away. Glowing sweetly at me, its white plumpness beckoned. I turned away resolutely. I wasn't that hungry. Yet.

"Tallis," Thorin came up to me as we rested and watched worriedly as I peeled off my bandages.

I hissed when pulling off the dressings that revealed puffy flesh and angry red punctures. It had been a three days since the run in with the wolf, but my leg was far from better. The wine was gone and the little water we had left was most certainly for drinking. Sighing, I rummaged through my pack until I found the little glass bottle of elvish healing slave. It was technically for surface wounds like burns or shallower cuts, but I was far past caring for its original uses. Perhaps I was running a great risk of having the wound grown over; however, it was a risk I had to take.

"It's going on," I announced.

Thorin looked at me, a little alarmed. "Will the skin not heal over the wound?" He knelt down beside me.

"A risk I must take."

"At least wash it first," he drew out his water skin and uncorked it. His eyes swept over my leg.

I waved it off. "Don't waste it. We don't know when we'll see water again."

"Tallis," he gave a reproaching look.

"No,"

"Just a little," His usually icy blue eyes were now a softer and darker hue in the shadows of the trees. His cheekbones had been a little red when we travelled in the sun, but it had all but faded now.

"No," He had no idea what his face could do to my resolve.

"It will become infected,"

"Slightly too late for that, I think,"

"I can go without," he insisted.

"I swear –if you give that to me, I'll drink the lot." I raised my brows and tilted my head for extra effect, "All of it."

That got a smile from him and he finally closed the water skin and put it away reluctantly.

"Thank you," I breathed.

I didn't tell him, but I inwardly feared that whatever had bitten me may have been poisonous, since blood had barely crusted around the wound, as it usually did. Perhaps the venom had been of the sort to keep the body from healing, but at least the bleeding had stopped for the time being. The elvish slave would close the wound fast, but I did not know if its healing properties would penetrate deeper in the punctures. Weighing the chances, I hoped my decision was the right one as I sucked a breath in and dabbed the medicine onto my leg as gently as I could. After rewrapping my calf, I got up slowly, trying to bat away Thorin as he put an arm around my waist.

"I can manage,"

He gave me a look, but let go.

Our food was running low already and we could not see nor begin to imagine how much longer we would have to travel before we reached the other side. Wasting many arrows to bring down one of the squirrels who scampered across the branches above the path, we finally shot one. We had rosted it that night. They let me have the first bite. I spat it out. Gloin had spluttered at me and snatched the rest of the thing up, but he too spat out his bite. It was inedible. I had never tasted anything so foul in my life. We could only pinch away at our food in our packs. Faces all around were sallow and heavy, dark circles rounded everyone's eyes. It was harder to sleep, if that were possible, as we wandered through the heart of the forest. The difference between day and night became blurrier too. Barely seeing during the day, the nights were just as horrible as before, but the eyes that had watched us multiplied and became bolder and came nearer.

Bilbo, Fili, and Kili were happy to keep me company as I lagged behind our little train. Ori danced about me, feeling horrendously guilty about my leg and trying to help, but mostly just getting in the way. Fili and Kili narrated stories together to lift my spirits. Hardly able to talk properly while breathing so heavily, they now were the storytellers.

"When we were tiny little dwarves," Fili began,

"Thorin took us down to the iron ore mines," Kili finished. "We were playing hide and seek, and we fell asleep in the one of the iron ore baskets that was to be taken to the smelting forges."

"It was Kili's idea, obviously," Fili stated, "I went with him to keep him out of trouble."

"That's not hard to believe," I commented.

"Falling asleep and forgetting to go home would have probably been yours," came the reply from his brother.

"Our first adventure," Fili paused, "And probably your only real one until now,"

Kili took great offence in this, "We went on that trip to the south for nearly five years –when Tallis was in Ered Luin! –to Southern Ered Luin to that mining outpost! Don't –,"

Fili was laughing. Kili fumed.

I wanted to hear more of the story, so I pulled them back. "You still remember this?" I brushed a few tendrils of hair from my face.

"Little bits." Fili cut in. "And it has been told to us so many times that sometimes I'm not sure if the memories I see are memories anymore. Maybe it was just my mind matching the stories with imaginings."

"Thorin told mum after he had ripped the mines apart looking for us. She made half of the city put down their hammers and search for us," Kili smiled.

"Though, we luckily climbed out the baskets before they were dumped into the fires and Thorin apparently found us tumbling about the smelter's running around and getting in the way."

"He snatched us up by the scruff of our necks like wayward kittens and delivered us to our mum,"

A deeper voice finished the tale. "And your mother," Thorin had done his shift at the front of the group and was waiting for us. "Your mother set us to cleaning her entire house as punishment."

I laughed aloud. Dis was one dangerously stripped cat when it came to the protection of her children. When I was in Ered Luin, she spoke often of her two boys with equal amounts of exasperation and unconditional love.

Bilbo shyly started a little tale of his own. "When I was a young hobbit, there was a while when I played conkers with my friends nearly every day."

Thorin remembered that the hobbit had thought himself quite good at a game of conkers when we had all first tumbled into his home those many, many, weeks ago. "I suppose I will have to play to find out how skilled you really are," he gave Bilbo rare grin.

Alarmed, Bilbo nearly fell over. "I –I... You –I think you would prefer swords and axes and hammers to a conker," he stammered.

We all chuckled.

"At any rate, I got bored of the game and wandered off into the woods near Hobbiton swinging my conker about climbing trees. The old patriarch of the Proudfoot family was walking under the branch I was on and my conker managed to catch onto his hair and lift it right off his head!"

We all looked at him, a little startled.

"He had been wearing a wig of sorts and no one had known it! Until me, anyhow."

.

.

Every time I needed to stop and rest, Thorin would settle down next to me. I was sweating from the combined effort of walking on one leg and carrying my pack, though it was much lighter than before. Part of my mind was plaguing me incessantly of the fact that my excessive sweating was not completely from exertion, but from the infection. Thorin did not ask to let him carry my pack and for that I was grateful, though I knew it pained him to see me struggle so. That day, we reached a part of the path that was overgrown to the point where branches had begun creep over the path. My arms were aching as I had to continuously hold them aside as I passed. I branch was caught tightly in my hair, disassembling my already unravelling braid before snapping off in my locks. I was hardly going to stop and pull it out in a place where visibility was literally limited to an arm's span ahead of my face. Perhaps whatever magic had kept the trees back did not run so strong in the heart of the forest.

In the half darkness that evening, I changed my dressings shakily. Undoing my long braid, I finally was able to pull the branch from my locks. I dropped my arms in exhaustion. It felt pathetic, barely being able to keep them lifted long enough to braid my own hair. I felt like splitting the root I was sitting on in half in anger, but knowing the forest a little better know, I was sure some terrible fate would befall me as revenge. Trying again, I sighed heavily in frustration and let my head hang forward. It was useless.

Calloused fingers brushed past my neck. Someone's hands were in my hair, deftly parting and crossing over and over. Thorin. I let my shoulders fall, finally at rest from the day's travels. His touch was firm but so gentle. The result would something neat and lasting, every curl and tendril in place. I ventured a smile, though I knew he could not see. He suddenly paused. I tensed. I knew he was looking at the fine chain around my neck. I wanted to turn and see his expression, but after feeling a slip of his breath caress the back of my neck, he continued to braid. Realizing with a jolt that he was truly _braiding_ my hair, I almost pulled away. Braiding. Hair. That –that was only permissible in two instances in dwarven culture: children or marriage. And I had kept the chain. I had kept his gift. He must have known then. He must have known that I hadn't left because of him, but for him. Did he still –still...

But I couldn't hurt him again. That was certain. I couldn't lose him again. I wouldn't be able to bear it.

.

.

.

I had told Dis about Thorin and I and finishing the sword and accidentally igniting our... passions in the process. She hardly looked surprised, but before she could have spoken, someone knocked on the door. My stomach and heart flopped around like dying fish. Dis opened the door. It was Dwalin.

"Dis," he nodded to her.

He came in, standing before me. "Lassie," he acknowledged.

"Dwalin," I replied uncertainly.

"Here," he opened his palm. "Thorin bade me to give this to you,"

It was a fine silver chain. Nestled in the center of Dawlin's hand was a gem. Dark red, to the point where tones of purple seemed to reverberate from its depthless facets, it gleamed softly. It had been cut into the shape of a crescent moon. The lights from the lamps dimmed in its wake.

Dis gasped. "That is a red diamond."

I swallowed dryly.

Dwalin's hand was still outstretched. I lifted the necklace from him, my fingers shaking.

"Do you accept?" he asked, a little uncomfortable.

I looked at him. I didn't understand, then.

Dis burst out with a, "Of course she does!" and shoved Dwalin out the door.

"What just happened?" My eyes were still locked onto the gem.

"You, are going to be courted by none other than my brother." She smiled at me, eyes crinkling.

I frowned.

"What?"

"You took the gift,"

I still hadn't fully grasped what had happened.

"That marks the beginning of the courtship rituals,"

I wet my lips to speak. "But I –I can't. I can't. I have to go."

It was her turn to be confused. "What? You can't go."

"I have to. He'll... he'll have to do without me."

"What are you saying?"

"I can't be his queen. I can't. I'm not a dwarf."

"You love him."

"It was only physical." I reassured myself, but I found that could barely spit the words out or look at Dis.

"I see the way you look at one another when you think the other isn't looking –the way you two work together and talk and laugh –don't lie to yourself,"

"What if he loves me because I am different? That will fade eventually."

"Are you worried he will stop loving you? Do you doubt his love?" She paused triumphantly. "You _do_ love him!"

"_I do!_" I gasped out, "But the risk,"

"How can you see it as a risk?"

I rambled on. "I always left right after I mastered what I learned. Then I would just be a visitor, just a traveller passing through and I could leave and everything could stay the same and nothing would ever have to change and I could just move to the next place –,"

"What about the people you leave behind?"

"Wandering _is_ stability for me. They –they would hardly miss me. I was just a wanderer."

"You really can't see how people want to be around you do you? Take a chance and do something different. Stay."

"But I _am_ the Wanderer, what am I if I do not wander?

"You are so warm, open, and inviting without even trying, but wandering has made your insides so cold. Let his fires thaw you. Love isn't a cage, Tallis,"

"It has always been for me. It confines me –they wanted to be with me all the time, they expect things. I always have to change too much." But in the five years I had been here, Thorin had never asked me once to change. He had never once wanted to improve me as if I needed to be fixed. A dwarf who was unlike all the other people from all the other races who came before him. I closed my eyes to force my thoughts away.

"You shouldn't give up who you are when you are in love. Love isn't a compromise. A relationship doesn't have to define who you are."

"And I tired of them. Every one of them. What if I tire of him?" The thought was terrifying. "What if he tired of me?" I balled my hands into fist. "I know what I feel about Thorin now, but it is safer not to... to go on. We will both survive."

"But you both won't live."

.

.

I padded softly towards the gates. There was not a soul about this early in the morning. I passed the darkened homes, something aching deep within my chest. But what could I do?

"Tallis,"

I whirled around. Balin.

"Where are you going?"

"Leaving,"

"Why?" He knew already. "You will break him –more than he already is,"

I clenched my jaw and turned away.

"You were healing him. His heart,"

"Don't say that,"

"Do you want to stay?"

I spun back round. "_Yes,_ _yes, I do. _I want to stop wandering for him, but who am I if I do not wander? And –_yes_, he _will_ be broken, but he is so strong –he will find a way to go on as he always has. Would I have even been able to bear him an heir? Would all his people have accepted me as a queen? You dwarves are all so stubbornly steadfast –I'm human! _I'm human!_ You are not supposed to trust my kind! We lie and cheat and our minds change like the wind! What if we don't stay in love? The story –the story stops here. This will be a happy ending. _This _is a happy ending in real life –the ones in the epic tales and the harp songs are hardly possible –something wrong will happen and everything will fall apart and it will destroy him. If I leave, then –then things like that will never happen. We can only shape our own endings. And this, _this, _is all I can do. For me. For him."

There had been movement behind Balin. I looked past him. It was Thorin. He had heard every word. His eyes found mine and something disappeared within me then. Hollowness yawned within me. It felt strange. I had never _not_ felt anything before. His eyes were a velvety sky blue. They enveloped me in their depths.

He hadn't said anything. He was giving me the freedom to choose.

I rarely ever shed tears for myself. I did then.

I left.

I didn't look back –so that I wouldn't be able to find my way back when I wanted to.

The chain slipped across my skin and the red diamond settled its heavy weight just a little to the right of my heart.

.

.

.

When Thorin finished braiding my hair, it was nearly pitch black. I suddenly felt the forest quite cold though it was still summer and felt a little ripple of shivers worming up my back. A little whimper sounded from the back of my throat and in one flurry of motion, I turned around to face him, and pulling my legs under myself, I crawled under his arm. He flinched and recoiled a little, but softened and chuckled –a wonderfully husky sound. We both were surprised –neither of us was very generous with physical touch at all. I buried my face into his shoulder and I felt happy again. I was happy. Finally. After the years we had been apart when I worked so hard always to fill a strange space that had settled itself within me.

I didn't care about anything else then. Besides, it seemed like there was little chance we were to make it out of the forest anyway.


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter eighteen

Other than the occasional sounds of the forest, the thud of fourteen pairs of feet hitting the endless path pounded in my head. I had to concentrate on my uneven gait in order to stay balanced. It left surprisingly little room in my head for other thoughts than a jumbled emptiness. Like this dammed forest.

"Do you hear that?" Bilbo tugged on my shirt.

"Hear what?" I croaked back.

"I –I... I think I hear water,"

Slowing my footsteps, I cocked my head, straining, but I heard nothing at all but a few general disconcerting sounds of the forest I had grown used to. Bilbo's wide little ears twitched a little.

"I'm sure," he looked at me anxiously.

I turned the other way and Thorin shrugged at me tiredly.

"Your ears are the sharpest among us," he nodded to Bilbo. "Can you tell what direction it is coming from?"

Frowning, Bilbo scratched his neck and stopped walking for a moment. "I am sure it is ahead," he announced.

There was little we could do but continue on. We could hardly leave the path; so hopefully, the water would come near to us. Gradually, my ears picked up the sound of gurgling water.

"Wait," I licked my dry, cracked lips. Stopping again, I listened. It really was the sound of water! "There really must be a river or stream nearby,"

"See," Bilbo smiled.

Swallowing dryly, I clutched at my water skin, ready to drain it dry before a long awaited refill. The leather crackled under my fingers as I twisted the crumbling cork off. A calloused hand fell upon mine. I looked up.

"Tallis, we don't know if we will pass the water let alone if it's reachable or even drinkable. Hold on a little longer until we see this river before you drain all you have left." He gazed at me imploringly as I found myself staring at the open water skin, unable to look away. Gently prying it away from me, he sealed it and returned it to its place, hanging from my pack.

Though the elvish salve seemed to be working, however slowly, beads of sweat still formed at my hairline and my upper back grew increasingly damp. The feverish shivering was worse in the morning, but it abated over the course of the day before the night came and the whole thing would start all over again. At least it didn't seem to be getting any worse. Last night, after I lodged myself against Thorin's side in the dark, we slept curled beside one another. I woke with my head on his chest and his arm around my shoulders, the metal of his brigandine shirt warmed by my heat. Shuddering and coiling tighter around myself, I sought the stronger, dwarven warmth that radiated off of him. He soon woke with yawn, and an odd, disbelieving smile brightened his face for a moment as he looked at me blinking at him before it became worry. We had tried so hard to not _touch_ before, but now, with Mirkwood eroding our wills, touch came simply and naturally: him helping me up with arm around my waist, me brushing hair from his face as he knelt down to help me check my wound. I suppose it was the same with the entire company, however. Exhaustion, hunger, thirst, and the watchful darkness of Mirkwood seemed to have taken our voices and we communicated through touch –perhaps too discouraged to speak, but all the same reassuring one another of camaraderie with a pat on the shoulder, a grip of the hands when passing things to one another, a gentle ruffling of hair, and sleeping as close to one another as newborn kittens. With touch, we reminded each other of that all this was still real.

"I can see a river!" Kili's voice, filled with relief and excitement came from up ahead.

"Not too close!" Thorin yelled at the ones at the front. "Wait! Remember what Beorn told us!"

Strong and fast, the oily black current carved away at the loamy dirt of the forest floor, creating no gently slope into the water on our side. It was simply a drop of about half an arm's length down to the water from the bank.

"Beorn told us of a river that holds a terrible enchantment," Thorin sighed, "This seems to be what he spoke of. No one is to touch the water."

Looking as black and as thick as pitch, the water still beckoned my parched throat seductively.

"There is no way across." Balin called to us. "There must have been a bridge here long ago –you can see the posts that once held it aloft."

There were two very mossy wooden posts near the brink. The wooden planks and the rope of the bridge had long since rotted away and we peered uncertainly up and down the river, but there was no other bridge to be seen. Squinting through the gloom, I could see the posts on the other side of the river about twelve yards away.

"I think there is a boat!" Bilbo cried out.

I looked towards the direction he pointed at. Sure enough, there was a shadow of something that seemed to be pulled up onto the sloping bank a few feet away from the posts on the other side.

"Pass me a rope," Thorin rummaged in his pack.

Bofur handed him a coil and Thorin set to tying it to the hook.

"Stand back," he warned, and he threw the hook at the boat. It landed in the water with a splash. He grumbled and dragged it back, hesitating before touching the wet rope. He didn't fall asleep with enchantment, so it seemed harmless in a few drops. Throwing it again, he landed it in the boat with a thud. Gently tugging the rope towards him, the hook finally caught and it went taut as he drew. Nothing happened. Dwalin placed his hands on the rope and pulled too. Then it was Dori. Then finally, with a snapping sound, all three of them fell backwards and Bilbo suddenly caught hold of the slack rope and was yelling that the boat was coming our way and that the hook was loose and that the boat was drifting away! I leapt forward with a grunt of pain, but stabbed my crutch towards the spinning black boat and managed to just catch it before it sailed away gaily down the current. Heart pounding, I drew it to the bank and Nori and Fili leaned down to grab a hold the little vessel.

Thorin dropped his pack into the boat and lowered himself in. It seemed safe enough. "Fili, Gloin, and Dori –you come with me first. Be on your guard. Hopefully the owner of this boat will not be waiting for us on the other side."

"There are no oars," Fili pointed out.

Kili tied another length of rope to another hook and threw it off as hard as he could. Pulling it tightly, the rope held fast. It must have tangled into the branches on the other side. He handed his end to Thorin so he could use it to pull the boat to the far bank. Thorin took the wet length of rope and hook from Bilbo and tied it to the little empty oar stirrups on the side of the boat.

"After we are on the other side, use this to pull the rope back. Here –," he handed it to me, "let it out as we pull ourselves across,"

I nodded.

"Balin, Ori, Bilbo –and you, Tallis come next –then Oin, Kili, Bofur, and Bifur, and then Nori, Dwalin and Bombur in the last boatload."

.

After I clambered onto land again, I drew an arrow from the quiver Beorn had given us and I bent my bow, joining Thorin who had unsheathed Orcrist. No guardian of the boat came. It was unnerving nevertheless. I felt more exposed than before, if that was possible. Finally, Dwalin was on our side with the coil of rope around his arm and Bombur was grumbling at being last and ready to climb out of the boat when something shot towards us from the trees. Out of the murkiness up ahead it appeared and bowled over Gloin, Dwalin, and Balin and readied itself to leap over the river. Pivoting on my good leg, I drew another arrow and released both at the same time, overtaking the beast mid-leap piercing into its hide. It stumbled as it landed on the other side and the sound of hoof beats faltered to a stop and a thump of a heavy body falling.

I let go of a shout and the smell of venison was already filling my nostrils when Bilbo let go of a wail.

"Bombur has fallen in! Bombur's drowning!"

Thorin let loose a flood of Dwarvish curses and snatched the rope from where it lay from when Dwalin had been knocked over by the hart. Looking wildly, we managed to see the top of Bombur's red beard floating above his head in the water. Thorin threw the rope and a hand caught it and we were able to pull him to shore. Swearing in fright, we hauled him out of the water spluttering, but when we laid him on even ground, he was already fast asleep with the rope clutched in his hand so tight we could not pull it from his grasp. And we could no wake him. I got onto my knees to check the beating of his heart and his breathing, but they both seemed perfectly normal. He just slept on no matter how hard we pinched, slapped, yelled or threatened.

The hart had bore down on Bombur, probably, and he had fallen backwards off the boat in fright and sent it spinning away downstream. We could not even go back to the other side to retrieve the beautiful sack of meat just laying there waiting to be eaten.

"Shh..." Thorin shushed our nattering complaints and the sound of dim horns and the sound of dogs far off to the north reached our ears.

We quieted and stood very still. Elves. It must have been. But I did not cry out help. I was not sure what the elves would have done to a group of dwarves wandering the forest, or the human and the hobbit that travelled with them. Silvan elves were not so gracious and patient as the Eldar. Especially if they were hunting. Something white caught my eye.

Iluvatar. It was a hind and two fawns, white as snow. My mouth watered. Drawing two arrows from my quiver, I let them loose. They missed. The deer still stood unmoving. Kili now had seen them too and he knocked an arrow and let it loose. It buried itself in a tree. Kili and I gave one another a confused look before snatching up our arrows and let them rain down towards the deer.

"Stop!" Thorin cried at us, but it was too late.

The deer fled, all our remaining arrows missed and our bows were now useless again. It was to be a long, gloomy night.

.

.

"It's time to switch!" Kili complained.

Him, Bofur, Dwalin, and Nori were carrying the still sleeping Bombur as we shuffled our way down the path.

Everyone ignored him.

"We've carried him for long enough –Fili –switch with me!"

"It's barely been an hour," Dwalin ground out through his teeth.

"How would you know?" Kili snapped back, "We can't even see the sun anymore. A day could have already passed."

"Don't be stupid," Fili snarled at his younger brother.

"Then you carry him!"

"You're just shirking from work!"

"You're the one _not_ carrying him!" Kili turned to his brother in rage and let go of the handle of the stretcher Gloin and Thorin had fashioned from branches and a sleeping roll, spilling Bombur onto the ground with a thump.

"_Kili_!" Tired and hungry as Thorin was, his voice thundered at his nephew, "Either you keep your mouth _shut_, or you carry Bombur _yourself_!"

Fili smirked.

Thorin did not miss it. "Fili –you should know better than to argue with your brother. _You two_ –," he reined in his anger with a deep intake of breath, "You two should have stayed away, but since you both have come, act like grown dwarves. I don't want to be minding you like children."

The dwarves rolled Bombur back onto the stretcher and none too gently, for try as we might, we could not find too much pity to spare for the fat dwarf who slept with a smile on his face and had to be carried like a useless sack of grain we could neither eat, nor rid ourselves of. He had been asleep for three days, and sometimes even turned over or twitched in his sleep. I wanted to slap his silly, wistful face. My leg –my leg was healing, but not well. It was not well at all. I loathed seeing it, day after day. It was showing signs of growing over, and there was absolutely not a thing I could do about it. No longer using the elvish salve, my skin began stubbornly healing on its own. The deep ruptures beneath the surface did not look, nor smell promising.

Today, the forest had slowly thinned around us. The green tangle had given way to a vast expanse of beech trees that marched in rows as far off as the eye could see. Grey trunks, straight as pillars, stood silently like the columns of an infinite great hall. There was finally wind and a watery, weak light. The air was finally moving. However, the silent and unfriendly watchfulness of the forest persisted.

_Hahaha_...

Nearly twisting my neck, I turned suddenly as a disquieting laugh far away reached my ears. Judging by the expressions on everyone else's haggard faces, my wits were yet to be truly addled.

"That doesn't sound like a goblin or an orc," Thorin whispered.

"It sounds... It sounds like an elf." I murmured back hesitantly.

_Hahaha...hahaha..._

"That doesn't sound like an elf," Bilbo had moved right up against my leg.

"Silvan elves are very different from the ones you met in Rivendell. These elves have never seen the Lights of Valinor. Their ties to the trees and the wild are very strong... and sometimes, well, they can be uncontrollable." I placed a hand on his thin shoulder.

_Aaahhhhh... aaaaahhhhhh... hahaha..._

The eerie voice was very, very far away, but it was most definitely singing. Beautiful and strange, it sent a shiver shooting up my spin and caused the hairs on my neck to stand straight up. It did not comfort me. The singing in Thranduil's halls had been much different than this. But again, I had never been in a situation where I had gone wandering off into the woods to sing creepy, wordless songs with the elves, so perhaps they had done it also when I was living with them, and I just hadn't known. But I was still afraid. Mirkwood had always been dangerous –even when it had been called the Greenwood. But now, with what the forest had become, what of its inhabitants?

.

Our voices grew hoarse with disuse and our eyes grew dull with despair. We hurried through the beeches for nearly two days, plagued day and night by the singing and the laughing before the path sloped down into a valley and the beeches were crowded out by oaks. Soon finding the single species of tree, the oak, just as unnerving as the beeches, my eyes darted around in the murky darkness; tense and waiting for the next surprise.

"Will this accursed forest never end?" Thorin gritted his teeth as we stopped to rest. "Somebody must climb a tree and see if the edge of the forest can be seen."

We all looked at Bilbo.

"Wait a second..." his eyes widened, "I don't think –,"

"You are the only one light enough to climb to the highest and thinnest branches. Don't worry; we'll pick a tree that grows into the path, just to be safe."

Bilbo coughed, unconvinced, but we forced him up a giant oak with its roots almost growing through the path to the other side. Up and up and up he went, until he disappeared into the leaves and vanished from sight. A little while passed and the rustlings of the hobbit climbing stopped.

"Bilbo!" I yelled, "What can you see?"

There was no answer.

"_Bilbo_!" Thorin roared, nearly deafening me.

Impatiently stamping my good foot, I wanted to scream. Bilbo was a selfish little thing, if he was up there in the sun and wind and ignoring us here at the bottom. After a whole lot of yelling and threats, we heard the sound of snapping branches and watched as leaves drifted down and rustled and finally, the hobbit returned, scratched and fairly wind tossed. What I would have given to be wind tossed. But my leg throbbed happily, reminding me that climbing a tree was out of the question.

"And?" Bofur demanded.

Bilbo shook his head, "I couldn't see any end to the trees. They go on forever!"

He was met by a wave of disappointed wails.

"Sorry," he said, "but the sun was shining and the wind was so cold and there were huge black butterflies everywhere, velvety and fluttering about by the hundreds! I suppose they would have been purple emperors if we were in the Shire."

"Stop," Gloin snapped.

"Please," Balin finished.

Bilbo stopped and we trudged on.

.

.

I opened my severely empty pack and looked inside. There were a few pieces of impossibly stale seed cake. Closing my eyes and hoping something else would appear; I searched through all the pockets, but came up, again, only with the bits of seed cake. Thorin made everyone gather up all the last bits of food and we divided it equally. We all only were able to get a mouthful each. My stomach let go of a wild growl, but I patted it gently and ignored it the best I could. It would have to learn to have to do without food. Opening my water skin, I tipped it back carefully and the last few drops spilled into my mouth. And without water, too, it seemed.

It rained later that day. Only a few fat drops collected on the branches actually made it down to where we were, and running about trying to catch dripping water falling from the top branches of a tree with your mouth does not quench one's thirst.

The only scrap of comfort, if you could have even called it that, came from Bombur.

Waking up, he proceeded to inform us that he had no idea where he was and could not understand why he was not at Bilbo's house. He seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened after the dwarves had cleared Bilbo's pantry. Setting him down, we tried convincing him of the events that had happened since, as he had a very difficult time believing us. After he heard that there was nothing to eat, he sat down and started crying, great huge tears running down his face.

"I was having such beautiful dreams! I dreamt I was in a forest rather like this one, but with lamps and fires and a great feast going on and on –forever! A woodland king was there with a crown of leaves and there was merry singing and I could not count nor describe the things that were there to eat or drink."

"You need not try," Thorin snapped, "If you cannot talk about anything else, be silent, for we should have just left you and your idiotic dreams in the forest; you are no joke to carry even after weeks of little food."

There was nothing else we could do, but tighten our belts around our empty bellies and hoist up our empty sacks and packs and slog along the track towards our inevitable fate of starvation. At times I found myself contemplating the leather I was wearing. Boiled leather was edible. I would have gladly wandered about naked if I had the water to boil my leather in. I told as much to Thorin, who looked at me a little strangely and concernedly before telling me to keep my clothes on for now. Continuously wailing on and on about hoe his legs were too weak to carry him and he wanted to lie down and sleep, Bombur finally refused to go a step further and he flung himself down on the ground.

"Go on, if you must," he flung is arms wide, "I'm going to just lie here and sleep and dream of food, if I can't get it any other way. I hope I never wake up again,"

Bofur stood beside his brother, leaned down and smacked him across the face. Bombur stayed resolutely motionless.

"Get up," Bofur ordered.

"No."

Balin's voice suddenly came from up ahead. "What was that? I thought I saw a twinkle of light!"

All of us turned to look towards where he was pointing. There were red twinkles a long ways off in the darkness, but another sprang up beside it and we were all up and off, even Bombur, racing towards it and not caring if it was trolls or goblins. The light ended up to the left of the path when we were level to it and the dancing of the flames were a good, long ways away off into the trees.

"MY DREAMS ARE COMING TRUE," Bombur gasped and nearly threw himself off the path before Bifur and Bofur held him back.

"A feast would be no good, if we never came back from it alive," Thorin reminded us of Gandalf and Beorn's warnings.

"But without a feast, we shan't remain alive very much longer anyway," Bombur said and my mouth watered in agreement.

We argued for a good long while, no one wanting to get lost, and no one wanting to be the one in the scouting party, but no one wanting to move on without trying to find food. Finally, we decided to all go together, despite the risk of never returning to the path. Our hunger decided for us.

Every root and log and branch was bent on hindering us as we stumbled and crawled quietly towards the glowing torches. I discarded my useless, bothersome crutch after a while and grit my teeth as pain shot up my leg. We stopped when we were close enough to see that a dozen elves were sitting about a huge fire in a clearing and were eating, laughing, and drinking. The smell of the roast meats was so enchanting that we were soon wandering involuntarily into the clearing, words of begging already on our lips.

The lights went out as we stepped into the circle. Someone kicked the fire out in a shower of sparks and we could no longer find the food, or one another. Blundering in the gloom, we shouted frantically until we finally found one another again and hunkered down in a clump to wait dejectedly for morning. But when Dori was on watch, he saw the lights again.

"They are coming from over there and there are more of them than ever!"

This time, we went in single file, clutching at one another's backs.

"Bilbo goes first to talk to them," Thorin pushed the hobbit forward, "He's too small to be of threat and they won't hurt him,"

"They won't?" he squeaked and was thrust forward into the light.

Out they went again and we descended into panicked yelling and groping. We finally calmed down to count ourselves, but try as we might, we couldn't find the hobbit.

"I've just stepped on something alive!" Dori screamed. "Oh," he panted, "It's Mr. Bilbo!"

Relief flooded through me as we manoeuvred our way towards the hobbit and Dori.

"Bilbo?" I shook him.

He snored peacefully. I shook harder, and harder. And harder still.

"What?" Bilbo was not pleased. "I was having the most lovely dinner in my dream!"

Everyone groaned.

"You've gone like Bombur," Gloin accused. "Don't tell us about dream food –dream dinners are no good and you can't share them."

"At least they are likely to be the best I'll be getting in this place," Bilbo muttered and lay down with us.

.

Kili woke us next, "Another fire! It's just sprang up now along with torches! And listen! There's singing and harping!"

No one got up but Bombur. There was no point trying. But as we all lay there, listening to the sounds of a feast and smelling wafts of scent coming off the honeyed venison on the spit, we could not resist and we tried again. Thorin and I stepped in first. There was dead silence. Out went the fires, up went the black smoke and the world tilted as I fell forwards. I was asleep before I hit the ground.


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter nineteen

Cool, dry hands passed over my forehead.

"Thorin?" I whispered, my eyelids so heavy I could not open them. I was suddenly filled with such an overwhelming sense of loss I woke.

"She's waking," a voice of rustling leaves and calm zephyrs.

Eyes still sealed shut, I first felt the stale dampness blanketing the back of my neck and condensing in the hollow between my shoulder blades. Sunken into a bed, I blearily swept my eyes across a room; there were tapestries on the walls and a simply carved chair on a bearskin before a fire glowing from the direction of the foot of the bed. The dull, angry glow of the fire induced a throbbing pressure behind my eyes and temples. The walls were stone.

"Tallis, can you hear me?"

The voice sounded very familiar. It came from my right side, clear as a bell. Fuzzily, I turned my head very, very slowly. There was an elf sitting close to the bed, silver hair and a kind, long face, but I looked past him to the other slender figure leaning languidly in the doorframe. _Legolas? _I looked back to the elf beside me. _Nestarion?_

I was in Thranduil's lovely little caves, then. I gulped. My mind cleared considerably with the realization. Hopefully, I squeezed my eyes closed and took a deep breath –hopefully, he was in a charitable mood. However, I had a sinking feeling that though I was in a bed with a healer at my side, I was most certainly a prisoner.

"Would you like to sit up?" Nestarion, considerate, as usual.

I tried. The silken sheets rustled like knives across my skin and an agonizing stab of pain shot up from my leg wound. Gritting my teeth, I willed my lethargic limbs to move, but I had to rely mostly on Nestarion, as he put a firm hand under my back and propped me up. Finally, with the sheets rumpled and a new wash of glistening sweat, I collapsed backwards against the pillows, panting.

Legolas spoke and I started at his voice. I had not heard it for many years, but it sounded no different. "Your healing was hardly admirable. A few more days and Nestarion would have had to remove everything below the knee."

"I had to re-open your wound," Nestarion looked at me apologetically.

I nodded uneasily. Where were the others? Where was Thorin? A panic swept through me and I peeled my lips apart to speak, only to find my throat dry as stone and my tongue glued to the bottom of my mouth like a fish left out on a dock for a week.

A bowl of water appeared before me. "Drink this,"

Hands trembling with effort, the cold, smooth surface curved against my feverish palms. Opening my mouth, I felt a cut separate and a warm wetness blossom down my lip. The dried pinpricks of dead skin on my lip felt oddly gritty as I tipped the bowl back –rivets of water freeing my tongue and spilling from the corners of my mouth and down my front.

"More," I croaked.

A sudden nausea swept hit the back of my throat. The Nestarion saw the widening of my eyes and the muscles in my neck tense and a basin was in my lap just as I vomited all the water I had just drunk. The waves ripped through my body over and over and I felt half blinded as I dryly retched before slowly regaining control of my body.

"Your body is trying to rid itself of the spider venom."

_Spider venom?! _

I rasped painfully, "I –I think, I'm finished."

The healer stood and took the basin, turning to leave to empty it elsewhere. Passing Legolas on the way out, he softly reminded him, "Make sure she drinks all the medicine," and he was gone.

Nodding, Legolas righted himself, silken hair slipping off his shoulders and padded silently over to the bed and taking the healer's empty chair.

"You look awful," His ancient, intense eyes swept over my lank hair, pale skin, and fever-red lips.

"You," I swallowed, wincing, "look like a pretty maiden, as usual."

He didn't answer and handed me a mug of steaming black liquid instead. I spilled a little as I brought it to my lips.

"Durin's beard!" I swore as I took a huge gulp, expecting tea, but graced with bitterness and cloying taste strong enough to make my eyebrows curl.

Legolas looked a little alarmed at my dwarven outburst, but tried explaining. "It will expel the poison from your body."

"I know," I replied, a little sullenly, "I've given this to many a person I've healed, but this –this is very –,"

"Strong? The spiders are the size of two elks put together."

I forced the liquid down, pausing at intervals to fight down the urge to throw it back up. Mind spinning, I racked my memories. I had no recollection of giant spiders at all. A sickening feeling rose in me. What if the elves left the company to the mercy of the spiders?

"Where is Thorin?" I put the mug down, my eyes boring into Legolas'.

"The dwarf?" there was a not so subtle tone of disgust.

"His name is Thorin."

"I know," he snapped back, but fell silent.

I waited.

"Do you remember what happened?" he finally continued.

"Thanks to your damn sleeping circle spells –I was sleeping the entire time!"

"After you and Tho –your frie –your dwarf fell asleep, the elves you were bothering came back speaking of being terrorized by dwarves and my father sent out a party to collect you all. They found a spider dragging you and your dwarf away: bundled with thread, paralyzed with venom and already injected with juices to turn your insides to liquid."

Alarmed, my eyes flew wide open.

He managed an amused smile. "We found you in time. You both were still solid. However, you will be expelling the venom for some time."

I sighed in relief, and then frowned. "The others?"

"The scouts are still looking." He gave me a penetrating glare. "What are you doing with a dozen dwarves?"

"Thirteen, actually," I paused, "and a –,"

He cut me off, "Have you lost your mind? Dwarves cannot be trusted!"

"Have you even _met_ a dwarf?"

"I'm nearly three thousand years old!" He was indignant.

"Oh...Oh! Your ada knows I am here!" I swore again. Legolas pursed his lips. "Thank you for all your hospitality, but you've got to get Thorin and me out of here." I tried swinging my legs off the bed, but I ended up sort of slithering off the side like a bunch of wayward sheets with a weak cry of surprise. Damned spider juices. I groaned as I tried to get up.

Giving me a huff of exasperation, Legolas got off the chair and kneeled down to help me. I smacked him off feebly.

"Tallis," a mellifluous, deep voice came from the door.

I looked at Legolas in panic, but he avoided my eyes and propped me up on my feet. First, a female elf, long red hair falling past her waist and dressed in the clothing of one of the Elven Guard swept into the room, then stood to attention beside the door as the owner of that deep, cold voice strode in behind her.

"King Thranduil," I grimaced and fell back onto the bed, landing in an awkward half reclined position and had to look up at the tall, and lithe elven king as he paced towards me, radiating a charismatic power. His robes shimmered as the red glow of the firelight reflected in the silver threads in the cloth that could not hide the movement of the powerful sinew beneath. A silver crown with autumn leaves of rare gems was caught perfectly in his blond hair. His porcelain skin was iridescent as pale eyes of the dangerous wilderness gazed unfeelingly at me from under his dark, prominent eyebrows.

"You are awake at last."

"I am." I tried arranging myself in a more suitable position, but my limbs were exhausted from the ordeal of sliding off and back onto the bed. So I lay there on the bed.

"I trust Nestarion was satisfactory."

"As he always is."

"Mirkwood is a dangerous place for travellers." His striking brows rose a little.

"It always has been."

"Are you hungry?"

I couldn't help myself. "Yes," I was utterly starving.

"I will have something brought to you,"

"Thank you," I replied a little brusquely. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"Anything for our guest."

Prisoner, actually. "May I see Thorin?"

"The prince of the dwarves needs his rest as much as you do."

"Where is he, though?"

"Comfortable,"

"Of course..." I knew of Thorin and Thranduil's less then friendly past. I doubted Thorin was comfortable. I waited.

"Why would you keep such company, Tallis?"

"Mirkwood is dangerous. It is unwise to travel alone."

"Travel to where?"

"The other side?"

"Tallis,Tallis... you're wiser than that."

I kept my mouth shut. There was a sudden commotion outside.

"Take your hands off of me!"

_Thorin!_

I saw a figure, stumbling and barely able to stand, dragged past the door. He had lost his long coat and brigandine shirt and his sword.

"Thorin!" I gasped out.

His blue eyes met mine for a moment, and I could see the relief flooding his face. Something clenched tightly in my chest as I watched him disappear from sight.

Thranduil smiled and strode out the door after them.

"Wait," I heard him say. "We can leave him in a bedroom if he is civil." There was a pause. "Why were you and your horde of dwarves attacking my people at their merrymaking?"

Thorin's voice was gravelly with fatigue and the after-effects of the spider venom. "We did not attack them. We –," I heard his voice catch, "we came to beg, because we were starving."

I bit my lip. It was not easy for Thorin to say such things.

"Where are your friends now? What are they doing?"

"I don't know," Thorin returned with a stony tone, "starving, I expect."

"What were you doing in Mirkwood?"

"Trying to find food and drink, for we were starving."

"Which road do you take? Where will it lead?"

Thranduil was met by silence. "Take him to the dungeons until he feels disposed to tell the truth, even if he waits for the rest of his life." I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Thorin!" I yelled.

I heard an equally desperate, "Tallis!" and "Do not touch me!" but the voice was getting further and further away. I could not gauge what direction he was being pulled away. I knew that there were hundreds of dungeons dispersed deep in the caves where one could get lost and never find their way out.

"He needs a healer!" I spat at Thranduil as he re-entered the room, a smirk dusting his lips.

"He already had one, but he refused."

"Let me see to him, you must let me help him,"

He didn't answer.

"He has never wronged you! You deserted him when Erebor fell –what right do you have to lock him away?"

"Ah, Nestarion, you have returned. Your ward is overexerting herself."

"I swear! If you don't let us go, you'll regret it! You will pay for this injustice –," I reached for the mug on the bedside table, ready to throw it in desperation.

Suddenly, the female elf who had stood motionless at the door stepped swiftly in front of the king. She blinked her green eyes at me and the dancing light from the flames glinted in the golden flecks scattered in her irises. She looked exceedingly familiar, but I could not remember a name, nor any recollection of ever having spoken with her when I was in Thranduil's halls the first time. Her over-protectiveness of the king made me laugh. And made me angrier.

"Are you going to hide from a sick, weak girl behind your instrument?"

I could see a flicker of anger flare in Thranduil's eyes. Grinning, I knew that I had got to him. However, the female elf snarled.

"Do not insult my king before me," her voice was hard.

"Tauriel," Thranduil raised a hand and the elven woman stepped back, her young, fiery eyes revealing her youth and how easy her passions were incited. Perhaps as a personal guard to the king, she was skilled in fighting, but I doubted she had really ever left the forest.

"Give me a sword! I'll fight for our freedom –,"feeling the evident look of contempt and scepticism raining down on me from Tauriel's eyes, I took a breath to continue, but was cut off.

"Tallis," Thranduil had stayed infuriatingly calm, "You are very tired and ill. You are a calm reasonable girl. You will come to your senses when you are better. For the time, do not worry yourself about the dwarf. I want you to stay in bed and heal." He turned to leave. "Legolas, Tallis needs her rest."

Legolas gave me an apologetic look and rose.

I let go of a frustrated yell when the door closed, letting my hot tears slide down my face.

.

.

"How long until I can walk?"

Nestarion glanced up from the fire he was stirring gently with a poker. "Not long,"

"Could you give me a more specific time frame?"

He smiled with his kind, old eyes, but they revealed nothing –they never did. I dropped the subject and sat up. The room was so small and being in a cave, there was no way of telling when the sun came up or went down. It could have been hours or days since Thorin and I were brought into Thranduil's halls. The poison seemed to have left my body, as the retching had stopped and my leg was on the mend, but I was in a severely weakened state. Lying in bed all day was slowly driving me mad. They didn't even need a dungeon to contain me.

There was a knock at the door and Nestarion went to open it. Legolas was standing in the doorway, cold and tall.

"I will leave you," Nestarion left and closed the door softly behind him.

The fire crackled audibly as I ran my thumb across the silken sheets, waiting.

"What?" I finally snapped.

"All twelve dwarves have been found," A slight, uncharacteristic sneer flashed across his angelic face. "Or should I say, saved."

I refrained from asking about the fourteenth little one. If Bilbo was still alive out there somewhere, I prayed he would be able to find his way out of the forest and to safety. He had to be alive. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, heart in my mouth. He had to be, or I would have known. I repeated it to myself for good measure. Bilbo was alive.

"Are they alright?" I finally responded aloud.

"Full of spider venom and unwilling to speak," he waited a little before continuing, "and perhaps a little scratched up from the band of orcs we had to rescue them from."

"_Orcs?_"

"They seemed to have been following your trail."

That, was not possible. We had been in the forest for weeks, perhaps and we had not been attacked. My leg throbbed. I swallowed. A warg had bit me, then –a warg scout that had been sent ahead, perhaps, and not a wolf as I had previously believed. Perhaps they had just caught up with us. I thought the Misty Mountain Eagles had killed them all. Perhaps the Azog was still... alive.

"Please, you have to let me see them. They are ill and wounded as you said and you know they will let no one see them but me."

"They are comfortably stabled."

My temper flared before I pushed the angry retort down. So they were in the dungeons too, then.

He watched me as he continued. "I thought I had made a wise decision all those years ago when I helped you leave. I did not do it so you could return with a stinking rabble of dwarves."

"I didn't lead them here! I know how much you idiots hate one another. This path was our only way through!"

"You should have –,"

"Taken the Old Forest Road? That place is infested with goblins and orcs nowadays. With spiders roaming this far north, what do you think will be swarming on the paths down there? Besides, where did the spiders come from?"

"South," he replied reluctantly.

"How far?"

"The old capitol, perhaps."

"The old fortress?" I swore, "Are you sure? Do you think that the –that he –,"

"That is none of your business,"

I frowned at him. "You elves are no different than any of the other races. All so sheltered and trusting in your Watchful Peace. Your father hasn't sent _anyone_ to go and look around that place?"

"No one goes near that place,"

"His orders, of course. The spiders are happy inhabitants your realm, then?"

"They have not killed anyone,"

"That's because you fight them off –I am pretty sure they have been trying."

"You do not need to trouble yourself with anything outside these walls."

"I thought our reunion was to be more cordial than this,"

"It would have been, if you had not brought the dwarves and led the orcs to–,"

"Yes! I know. Are you finished gloating that you have the dwarves? Yes? Alright –then leave."

Thunderstruck, he realized I was ordering him out of my prison. He obliged, angrily, slamming the door behind him.

Fuming, I pulled the hair sticking to my face and sighed heavily. The old fortress used to be the capitol of the Silvan elves during Oropher, Thranduil's father's time. Once named Amon Lanc, it was a hill where Oropher had hosted great feasts in the shade of the oaks and beeches under the vast, dust strewn velvet sky, but Sauron had taken the hill and built Dol Guldur upon its fair slopes secretly long after his fall against the Last Alliance and the elves had fled northwards. The White Council had cleared him out once and he had fled to the East, beginning the Watchful Peace. But the elves had never moved back. I heard them speak of a lingering darkness and pain that would take a hold of any who wandered too near. With the spiders coming up from the south, there must be something once again dwelling near or in the fortress, and whatever it was it was powerful if it could bring forth the descendants of Ungoliant. Remembering with a jolt that Gandalf had gone south, I wondered if he had gone down to the old fortress. I had not been privy to what Radagast and Gandalf were speaking of after we left the troll cave, but Radagast lived in Mirkwood and whatever led him to find Gandalf must have had something to do with lengthening shadows and spider webs.

If it was Azog and his merry band of orcs and wargs following us at such great lengths through the dangers of Mirkwood, we had been incredibly lucky that they took so long to catch up to us. Hopefully, the elves had killed him too. But with how well recent events were going, I doubted that was the case.

Staring blankly into the fire, I leaned forward to adjust the sheets and the red diamond swung out from the bodice of my nightgown, sparkling darkly. Catching it in my hand, I felt my stomach clench with anxiety that threatened to rise to my throat. All of the dwarves were in the dungeons and every plan I concocted was easily unravelled when I thought about it. Thranduil was thorough in his precautions.

There was nothing I could do. The wave was crashing down over me and I hunched over, unable to breathe with the enormity of our predicament. Fighting our way out of Thranduil's halls was very different from fighting a way out from the Goblin King's realm. The dwarves were sick and wounded and there was nothing I could do. Nothing. Thorin looked so very ill and tired and –I hated myself for thinking so –old. I missed his warmth. I missed the solidness of his body. I missed his the way his voice reverberated through me when he was close. I missed the braids in his hair, the cropped beard, the callused fingertips, his seriousness, his surprising smiles and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. I missed the icy blue of those eyes when he was wary and the darkening warmth of them when they rested on me. I should not have let myself become accustomed to him in the forest. I should not have become used to his arms.

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to the edge of the bed and let the bottoms of my feet touch the ground lightly. Leaning forward, I could feel my muscles pulling –but unlike the usual soreness that accompanied the healing, my legs felt surprisingly numb. I supposed it was whatever the spider used to paralyze its victims. Slowly, I stood and took a shaky step, swaying. And another. I smirked to myself.

The door suddenly opened. I threw myself backwards towards the bed, but my legs decided not to cooperate and I landed on the floor.

"I saw that," Nestarion came through the door.

"I fell off the bed."

He gave me a chiding look and helped me up.

"Thranduil will let you leave the room with a guard or two."

My eyes widened and he winced as I dug my fingers into his arm in excitement. I narrowed my eyes after a moment.

"That doesn't sound like Thranduil."

Nestarion shrugged elegantly, and replied, "I am not privy to the king's thoughts." However, I highly doubted he would quench my curiosity even if he had Thranduil's confidence.

Eager to leave, I accepted the terms, though unsure of what price I had to pay.

.

.

I was let out. Thranduil wanted me to stay, and wanted things as they were before. I had worked as a sort of servant, and I supposed he wanted to keep it that way. You see, everyone only sees the elves as these beautiful, clean, perfect beings, but they got things dirty too and did all the things all the other races did. I was sent to be a laundress. The kitchens were probably too dangerous. He probably thought I would poison him.

After a few days of scrubbing sheets and clothes in scalding water, my feet slowly regained their usual mobility and my hands were cracked and bleeding. Kept in the cave where a spring rose bubbling out of the rock and into an opaquely shimmering pool, the guards escorted me directly from my locked room to a fresh pile of stained uniforms each day by the waters.

Days passed slowly. Never seeing the sun, I counted my days with the number of steaming tubs of clothing I emptied and filled. Other than Nestarion occasionally checking my health and the two guards and a silent and suspicious serving elf who collected the laundry from me and never, ever met my eyes, I saw no one. Thranduil and Legolas and Tauriel had not come again. Finally, one of the guard informed me that Thranduil was to extend my privileges. I snorted at his words but let him continue. I was to bring the laundry up to the elves who would fold and return the sheets and clothing to the Elven Guard barracks, but I was to stay in the level I was on and not allowed to descend further into the caves, nor ascend closer to the surface. Thrilled as they left, I yanked all the dried sheets and uniforms I could find hanging about the cave and tossed it hurriedly into a basket before tearing out of the room and down the corridor. I breathed a big breath of stale cave air, relishing my little bit of freedom before heading down the hall through the winding tunnels towards my destination near to the steps that lead both to the upper and lower levels of the halls. I could see a pair of guards at the base of the steps. That way was closed to me.

"Wait! Stop!"

A shout came from behind the guards. It was Tauriel.

I froze, unsure of what to do.

"Did you really think, you could disguise yourself as a laundress and just slip away?"

"Thranduil he –,"

Her knife was at my throat.


	21. announcement!

Hello, hello everyone! liriethmaethor reporting for duty.

Anyway, for those who have stuck with this story and with me as I petered off the past few months in nothingness, thanks so much.

I think I'll start on the next chapter sometime this week, though it may be a little slow going. I'm writing an novel for fun and planning another one at the moment, so it'll be a bit of a juggle, so please bear with me.

With the new trailer out for the the second Hobbit movie, I think I can figure out where I want to go as it sparked the inspiration to keep going as did your kind and urging comments!

With Tauriel's knife poised at Tallis' throat, I am excited to see where it will all go next!

See you soon,

~liriethmaethor


End file.
